ARCHIVE

FUTURES
2018
A 3-day training course
for international film, television and
digital media archive professionals

19 – 21 JUNE
Contact archivefutures@bfi.org.uk
for further information

CONNECT WITH
SIGHT & SOUND ONLINE
/SightSoundmag
@SightSoundmag
/sightsoundmagazine
bfi.org.uk/sightandsound
 HHHHH
“A STRANGE, SENSUAL WONDER… ASTONISHING”
XAN BRO OKS , THE GUARDIAN

“BEAUTIFUL, HYPNOTIC, MYSTERIOUS”

MANOHLA DARGIS , THE NEW YORK TIMES

A f ilm by
LUCRECIA MARTEL

IN CINEMAS MAY 25
WWW.NEWWAVEFILMS.CO.UK

98 Journal of Film
Journal of Film Preservation
04.2018 Preservation The Journal of Film Preservation is published
twice a year by the International Federation
of Film Archives (FIAF). It offers a forum for
both general and specialized discussions on all
theoretical, technical and historical aspects
of moving image archival activities. Articles
are written in English, French or Spanish, with
summaries in the other two languages.

PURCHASE THE CURRENT ISSUE,

OR SUBSCRIBE TO THE JFP
1-year subscription (2 issues): 40€ + shipping costs
2-year subscription (4 issues): 70€ + shipping costs

www.fiafnet.org

Dedicated to the preservation of, and access to,

the world's film heritage since 1938
70 Mary and the Witch’s Flower
Studio Ghibli obsessives, fretfully waiting for Miyazaki Hayao’s
newly announced ‘How Do You Live?’, will find Studio Ponoc’s first
feature soothingly familiar – but the film is at its most interesting
when it peels away from the Ghibli template to do its own thing

52 Films of the Month 58 Films 82 Home Cinema 92 Books

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 51
FILMS OF THE MONTH

Paris trance: in Léonor Serraille’s film, Laetitia Dosch plays Paula, a 31-year-old sorely lacking in adult life skills who is adrift after the end of a relationship

further medical intervention or as an enviably The thirtysomething female at war with the
Jeune femme free spirit confronting the world’s hypocrisies expectation that she should be able to function
France 2017 rather depends on which side of her is tilted day to day is an archetype that gained popularity
Director: Léonor Serraille towards us in any given scene; and whether we in the 1990s, when characters such as TV’s Ally
Certificate 15 98m 17s
read her specific experiences as symptomatic of McBeal and the protagonist of Helen Fielding’s
the general condition of adult femaleness may novel Bridget Jones’s Diary comically laid bare the
Reviewed by Hannah McGill hinge on how much we deem young women struggles behind seeming permanently perky,
The pitfalls and occasional pleasures of able to take ownership of their own lives. put-together and professional while feeling a
rootlessness and self-absorption are anatomised Dosch’s performance, which hits a high pitch mess inside. Lately, the likes of Girls (2012-17),
in this portrait of a woman struggling to find her of flamboyance in the opening hospital scenes Frances Ha (2012) and Ingrid Goes West (2017) have
place after a significant break-up. Paula (Laetitia and continues to climb thereafter, is another renewed both the trope itself and the argument
Dosch) spent her twenties with Joachim (Grégoire factor that may divide audience sympathies. over whether its emphasis on female messiness is
Monsaingeon), an older, famed photographer
who was once her professor, and whose sexy
pictures of her contributed to his success. Now 31,
replaced in his affections by a younger model, and
largely estranged from her family for unspecified
reasons, Paula is alone and directionless. Her
reaction to the break-up briefly lands her in
psychiatric care, but she discharges herself to
wander Paris alone, haunting her ex’s apartment,
seeking couches to crash on and freaking
out strangers with her socially inappropriate
intensity. Joachim’s cat, which Paula saves and
then spends the rest of the film neglecting and
trying to palm off on other people, becomes an
emblem of both her natural warmth and her
utter dearth of practical skills or responsibility.
Whether we regard this jeune femme as a
vulnerable, deluded individual in need of Top security: Dosch as Paula, with her one dependable friend Ousmane (Souleymane Seye Ndiaye)

52 | Sight&Sound | June 2018


feminist or quite the reverse. Is the woman whose
adult capabilities are a thin veneer over hysteria
a rebellious threat to patriarchal expectations,
or a perfect product thereof? This is the line
along which Jeune femme wobbles in terms of
its presentation of Paula’s neediness. She has
moments of cheering fierceness – when a creepy
would-be suitor pronounces himself “touched”
by her unhappy state, she shoots back, “Touch
yourself!” and leaves – but for the most part, this
31-year-old is sorely lacking in adult life skills.
Are we to suppose that these skills were
actively denied her by her older ex? In this
regard, the film is highly pertinent to the
conversations about sexual abuse and female
disempowerment that have become so
widespread and impassioned in the past six
months. Do women bear full responsibility for
themselves, or are they at a perpetual social
disadvantage that makes autonomy impossible?
Do intimate heterosexual relationships, even
those that are non-violent and ostensibly loving
and supportive, inevitably replicate this power
imbalance? “You could have taught me things,”
Paula tells Joachim, “instead of just taking my
photo.” Either way, seemingly, who she turned
out to be would have been down to him.
It’s striking that the film characterises
male sexual desire itself as somewhat suspect.
Joachim’s lust for Paula has done nothing but
Is the woman whose adult
capabilities are a thin veneer
over hysteria a rebellious threat
to patriarchal expectations,
or a perfect product thereof?
hobble and infantilise her, and ultimately shows
itself as violent and destructive. Other men who
want her are presented as annoyances; and her
one dependable friend, Ousmane (Souleymane
Seye Ndiaye), seems to solidify as a credible
romantic prospect only when he falls asleep
instead of insisting on sex. Sexual attractiveness,
meanwhile, is a weird system of faintly ridiculous
codes and equipment, symbolised by the
elaborate items of underwear – glorying in names
such as ‘The Torpedo’ – that Paula finds herself
selling when she gets a job at a fancy boutique.
Paula’s unsuitability for the world of high-
end lingerie sales is for the most part played
for straightforwardly sitcommy laughs. Her
interview for the position sees her present herself
as level-headed, calm and obsessively clean and
tidy – the exact reverse of what we know her
to be – and she almost blows her cover with
every hectic stare and needy laugh. The fact
that she gets the job is at once testament to her
tenacity and potential and to the store’s deluded
naivety, for in a film like this we are in the odd
position of at once rooting for the protagonist
and knowing she’s a nightmare. But Paula’s
successful entrée into the fashion world might
also be read as a comment on how instability
can be packaged as sexy eccentricity, provided
it is presented with a certain visual flair. Just as
the highest of high-end couture has a tendency
to resemble the haphazard get-ups of society’s
least privileged, so Paula, with bird’s-nest hair,
daubed make-up and weird outfit, looks good
enough to fool the experts. Elsewhere in the film
we see her disguise a self-inflicted head wound
by sweeping her hair into a 1960s beehive. “Amy
Winehouse!” she declares, invoking a woman
whose extremes and excesses were a source of
edgy intrigue right up until they killed her.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Valérie Valéro Blue Monday
Sandra Da Fonseca Original Music Productions presents
Written by Composed by A Blue Monday
Léonor Serraille Julie Roué Productions
Screenplay Production production
Collaborators Sound Mixer With the participation
Bastien Daret Anne Dupouy of the Centre National
Clémence Carré Costumes du Cinéma et de
Director of Hyat Luszpinski l’Image Animée
Photography In association with
Émilie Noblet ©Blue Monday Arte Cofinova 12,
Editing Productions Cinéimage 11
Clémence Carré Production With the support of
Art Director Companies Région Île-de-France
Paris, the present. Thirty-one-year-old Paula is
hospitalised when a break-up triggers a psychotic
episode. Despite having nowhere to live, she discharges
herself early. Trading on her charm and fudging her
qualifications, Paula finds work as a live-in nanny and in
a high-end lingerie store; both jobs demand adjustments
to her chaotic habits, but the latter brings her
unexpected enjoyment, and a friendship with security
guard Ousmane. She runs into her long-estranged
mother, but the two fail to connect. The wealthy young
mother for whom she nannies is aghast when Paula
ignores her instructions by keeping her daughter out late
and feeding her junk food, though the little girl herself
is thrilled. On a visit to the doctor, Paula discovers that
But if the film implicitly wags a disapproving
finger at the fetishisation of the needy woman,
it’s not above putting its own romantic spin on
FILMS OF THE MONTH
Paula’s wayward ways. Told that Lila, a child
she’s undertaken to nanny, is a handful, Paula
enthusiastically replies that she was too, and
that “it works out in the end”. We know that
it isn’t working out for Paula at all, and the
pall of ambiguity that follows her claim is one
of the film’s most effectively ambiguous and
uncomfortable moments. But when Paula then
runs wild with Lila, disregarding instructions
and failing to get the child home on time, the
film unambiguously portrays the mother as
an unimaginative buzzkill for protesting. Lila,
meanwhile, clings lovingly to her new best friend,
placing innocence and good implicitly on Paula’s
side. It’s the same vibe when Paula discovers that
she’s pregnant, and a doctor gently enquires about
the stability of her life. “Stable? What does stable
mean?” Paula cries, bouncing around the room.
“Stability’s boring!” The doctor responds with
beatific, envious admiration. Finally, someone
kicking against the tedious practice of checking
on a patient’s preparedness for parenthood! The
matter of whether or not Paula has terminated her
pregnancy, meanwhile, will be delicately fudged.
The film seems disingenuous at these points,
and too keen to romanticise Paula’s haywire
behaviour. Its eye for the value of unexpected
moments of connection between people is acute,
however. We see Paula at her most unsettled not
when she is treated cruelly or dismissively, but
when someone shows her unexpected generosity,
as when a young female vet (Agathe Desche)
agrees to defer a treatment bill for that darned
cat. And if the film seems indecisive about how
funny it wants to be, the observational humour
of Léonor Serraille’s script can be dead-on.
Every overachieving contemporary to whom
one has ever failed to measure up is evoked
by the airy CV offered by Lila’s mother, as she
shows Paula around her palatial home: “I used
to be an accountant; now I’m a dancer.” And
Paula executes a highly relatable double take
when, on impulsively ducking into a cinema,
she finds herself ticketed up for something
called Immortal Kingdom: Renaissance 3.
In association with Ousmane In Colour
La Ruche Studio Léonie Simaga [1.66:1]
Developed with the Yuki Subtitles
support of Cofinova 9 Erika Sainte
Lila’s mother Distributor
Lilas-Rose Curzon Artificial Eye
Cast Gilberti-Poisot
Laetitia Dosch Lila Festivals title (for non-
Paula Simonian Audrey Bonnet French territories)
Grégoire doctor Montparnasse
Monsaingeon Nathalie Richard Bienvenüe
Joachim Deloche Paula’s mother
Souleymane Agathe Desche
Seye Ndiaye vet
she herself is pregnant, and seems keen to keep the
baby. She goes to her mother’s house, and although she
doesn’t reveal her news, the two finally manage to have
a conversation. Paula’s ex, Joachim, tracks her down at
the lingerie shop, and she tells him of the pregnancy.
His reaction is positive, and he treats her to a romantic
dinner, but she is put off by his disparagement of her job
and intelligence. She goes to bed with Ousmane, and he
charms her by falling asleep rather than insisting on sex.
On another date with Joachim, Paula tells him that she
isn’t going to keep the baby. He is enraged, and subjects
her to a near-rape. We see Paula folding pyjamas in a
hospital room, perhaps after a termination. She is then
seen packed and ready to leave her lodgings.
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 53

Redoubtable
France/Myanmar 2017
FILMS OF THE MONTH
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Certificate 15 107m 42s
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
The actor Anne Wiazemsky, who made her
debut in Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar
(1966) and the following year starred in Jean-Luc
Godard’s La Chinoise, died last October at the
age of 70. Redoubtable, adapted from her 2015
memoir Un an après, could perhaps be regarded as
a posthumous revenge on the man who became
her second director and, not long afterwards, her
husband. The portrait of Godard that emerges
in Michel Hazanavicius’s film, though, is rather
more scathing, and even more irreverent, than
that painted by his ex-wife. (The couple split up in
1970; divorce didn’t follow until nine years later.)
The film takes its title from a radio news item that
we see the pair listening to early on in the action.
Dealing with the launch of a new French navy
submarine, the announcer explains that “life is
tough aboard Le Redoutable”. The line is reprised
several times, as Anne’s life with her redoubtable
mate becomes increasingly insupportable.
Following the unlooked-for success of his
multi-Oscar-winning silent-movie spoof The Artist
(2011) and the flop of his all-too-serious The Search
(2014), set in 1999 Chechnya, Hazanavicius has
evidently decided that comedy is his thing – and
for all that it deals with the painful emotional
erosion of a relationship which culminates in a
suicide attempt, Redoubtable is largely played for
laughs. Louis Garrel’s Godard is often reduced
to a slapstick figure, repeatedly falling over
and smashing his glasses, without which he’s
almost blind, and at various times humiliated
by the youngsters whose cause he tries to
support during the uprisings of May ’68. (“Grow
some balls, Jean-Luc!” yells a student, when
Godard misjudges the mood of a tempestuous
gathering at the Sorbonne.) But he himself
can dish out the humiliation when he gets
the chance, mercilessly berating a young film
student who has dared to express admiration
for his work, and patronisingly lecturing Anne
Philippe Garrel as Jean-Luc Godard
54 | Sight&Sound | June 2018
(Stacy Martin, appealingly fresh-faced and
increasingly disillusioned) in what she describes
in her memoir as his “schoolmasterly tone”.
Perversely, it seems that Godard – at least as he
is depicted here – will defer almost cringingly to
anyone who criticises him (especially if they’re
younger than him) and treat with contempt those
who praise him. At times he seems motivated
to lash out by what Wiazemsky vividly termed
“this terrible spitefulness squatting inside him”,
as when he denounces Bernardo Bertolucci to
his face as making “cinéma de merde”. To be fair,
he also dismisses his own films in the same
scatological terms, and much of his anger
seems to stem from self-hatred. “All artists
should die at 35,” he announces (being 37 at
the time), and writes off the whole of cinema
– including that of such former idols as Renoir
and Lang – as worthless. Sole exceptions, he
asserts, are the Marx Brothers and Jerry Lewis.
One of Redoubtable’s funniest and most
technically virtuoso scenes is set in a car
carrying Godard and Anne, their friends Michèle
(Hazanavicius’s partner and regular star Bérénice
Bejo) and Jean-Pierre Bamberger (Micha Lescot),
filmmaker Michel Cournot (Grégory Gadebois)
and their driver Emile (Marc Fraize) back to Paris
from the Cannes Film Festival, which Godard
and his friends have succeeded in shutting
down on revolutionary grounds – thus robbing
Cournot’s picture Les Gauloises bleues of its
premiere. With public transport shut down
by the strike and petrol near unobtainable, for
Emile to have procured car and fuel as a favour to
Michèle and Jean-Pierre is quite an achievement.
Nonetheless, Godard, far from expressing
gratitude, manages to alienate all his fellow
travellers with his curmudgeonly behaviour. The
scene is shot in a long sustained take framing all
six actors, a tour de force of malicious humour.
This nightmare journey doesn’t derive from
Un an après, where the trip is mentioned but
little of what might have happened on it; and
Hazanavicius tosses in a good many gags of
his own, as when Godard tries to disguise his Garrel and Martin as Godard and Wiazemsky
fingerprints with glue and then finds that
everything sticks to his fingers, or when he
and Anne wander around their bedroom stark
Godard has dismissed the film as
naked talking disparagingly of filmmakers ‘a stupid, stupid idea’ – a verdict
who seem obsessed with undressing their
actors. He can’t resist slipping in a Woody the distributors, opportunistically
Allen gag, either, with a fan asking JLG, “When
are you going to make funny films again?”
impudent, have plastered
Some opportunities from Wiazemsky’s book all over the release posters
are missed; the acrimonious confrontation in
London between Godard and John Lennon (1967) and the like – along with pastiche stylistic
would have been well worth watching. ‘Godardisms’: chapters, quotations, intertitles
At the start of the film, we hear Anne’s star- (“Pierrot le mépris” reads one) and jump cuts.
struck voice describing her lover, director and Faced with poor reviews and falling box-office
mentor: “He was respected by the whole world, sales, Godard, as one might expect, blames the
unanimously regarded as the most gifted of his customer. “If the audience no longer likes my
generation. The nouvelle vague – that was him, films,” he states defiantly, “it’s because there
Jean-Luc Godard. His very name embodied a is something wrong with them.” ‘Them’, of
certain concept of cinema. The future belonged to course, being the audience, not the films.
him. And I loved him.” The disillusion that sets in Redoubtable, predictably enough, has stirred
during the course of the film can be seen not only up a good deal of indignation among dedicated
as hers, but as that of Godard’s early admirers, Godardians, being denounced in various
for it covers the period when, largely under the quarters as “crude”, “pointless”, “fawning”,
influence of theorist Jean-Pierre Gorin, he went “lazy” and “what happens when the mediocre
from making (as has often been remarked) films envy the truly great”. Godard himself has
that everyone wanted to watch to films that no dismissed the film as “a stupid, stupid idea” – a
one wanted to watch. The point is underlined by verdict that the distributors, opportunistically
sly visual nods to several of those early ‘funny’ impudent, have plastered all over the release
films – Vivre sa vie (1962), Le Mépris (1963), Une posters. Hazanavicius, while acknowledging
femme mariée (1964), Pierrot le fou (1966), Weekend that “to me, [Godard is] one of the five to eight
 FILMS OF THE MONTH
directors who changed the history of cinema”,
Credits and Synopsis
adds that “some people probably think me
telling Godard’s story is blasphemy… But Produced by Jean Minondo presents a La Classe of CNC (Nouvelles Cast Marc Fraize
he’s not my hero or my god. Godard is like Michel Hazanavicius Nicolas Bouvet- Américaine, Les technologies en Louis Garrel Emile
Florence Gastaud Levrard Compagnons du production) Jean-Luc Godard Emmanuele Aita
the leader of a sect and I’m an agnostic.” Riad Sattouf Jean Paul Hurier Cinéma, Studiocanal, Executive Producer Marco Ferreri
Stacy Martin
Hazanavicius has also claimed (not entirely Written by Costumes France 3 Cinéma Daniel Delume Anne Wiazemsky
Michel Hazanavicius Sabrina Riccardi co-production in Film Extracts Bérénice Bejo In Colour and
convincingly, perhaps) to have “made Redoubtable Based on the book association with La Passion de Jeanne Black & White
Michèle Rosier
in a spirit of admiration and respect for Godard Un an après by ©Les Compagnons Forever Group d’Arc/The Passion of Micha Lescot [1.85:1]
Anne Wiazemsky du Cinéma, La With the participation Joan of Arc (1928) Jean-Pierre Subtitles
and his work, at the same time as aiming to make Director of Classe Américaine, of Canal+, Ciné+, [audio only]: Bamberger, ‘Bambam’
a film that was entertaining and appealing to Photography Studiocanal, France Télévisions It’s Always Fair Grégory Gadebois Distributor
Guillaume Schiffman Forever Group, With the support of Weather (1955) Thunderbird
a wider audience”. Entertaining it certainly is; Editors France 3 Cinéma Région Île-de-France Il buono, il brutto,
Michel Cournot
Releasing
Félix Kysyl
there’s a playful irreverence about the narrative Anne Sophie Bion Production in partnership il cattivo/The Jean-Pierre Gorin
Michel Hazanavicius Companies with the CNC Good, the Bad and French theatrical title
treatment that keeps it watchable, and Garrel, Art Director La Classe Américaine, A film by Michel the Ugly (1966)
Arthur Orcier
Le Redoutable
Jean-Henri Roger,
often seen as a narcissistic actor, paradoxically Christian Marti Les Compagnons du Hazanavicius ‘Jean-Jock’
Sound Cinéma, Studiocanal With the support
gives perhaps his most likeable performance
yet as a largely dislikeable character. Altogether Paris, 1967. Director Jean-Luc Godard, aged 37, has just Pierre Bamberger, Godard and Anne travel to the Cannes
the film treads a knife-edge, maintaining an finished shooting his latest film ‘La Chinoise’. He and Film Festival. Also with them is filmmaker Michel Cournot,
effectively teasing balance between satire and his star, 19-year-old Anne Wiazemsky, fall in love and who has a picture, ‘Les Gauloises bleues’, in competition.
homage, and depicting, in Hazanavicius’s words, marry. The film, his most overtly political yet, isn’t a Godard and his fellow ‘nouvelle vague’ directors demand
great success; to Godard’s chagrin, even the communist the festival be cancelled in sympathy with the striking
“a man’s profoundly sincere… quest for political Chinese dismiss it as bourgeois. students and workers; it ends five days early and
and artistic truth, combined with a sort of In May 1968, the student-led ‘événements’ break out Cournot’s picture isn’t screened. Transport is scarce,
masochistic and self-destructive pathology”. in Paris in protest at Charles De Gaulle’s government. but Michèle’s friend Emile, who has a car and access to
Further muddying the waters, Hazanavicius Godard welcomes them with enthusiasm, but in a petrol, agrees to drive them all back to Paris. En route,
meeting at the Sorbonne he is mocked by the students. Godard insults and alienates everybody. Increasingly
has stated that the real topic of his film He and Anne take part in street protests, often having to disillusioned with her husband, Anne accepts an
is radicalism. An arguable claim; but the flee from the violence of the riot police. At a party, Godard invitation from Italian director Marco Ferreri to appear in
central section of Redoubtable does succeed in meets youthful theorist Jean-Pierre Gorin and is much his film ‘Il seme dell’uomo’. Godard shows up on the shoot
capturing, more vividly than any other film of impressed with him; they form a partnership, the Dziga in Rome, behaves jealously and stages a suicide attempt.
recent years, the excitement, exhilaration and Vertov Group. Back in Paris, Anne appears in Godard’s film ‘Le Vent
Along with their friends Michèle Rosier and Jean- d’est’, but then they break up.
delusive hopes of the ŽvŽnements of May ’68.

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 55

FILMS OF THE MONTH
Summer daze: Edith Bouvier Beale, aka ‘Little Edie’, at Grey Gardens with filmmaker Lee Radziwill in 1972
That Summer
USA/Sweden/Denmark/Finland/
United Kingdom 2017
Director: Göran Hugo Olsson
Reviewed by Michael Brooke
“Accidents are very important,” says Peter Beard
near the start of Göran Olsson’s third found-
footage documentary feature (after 2011’s
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 and 2014’s
Concerning Violence). He’s talking about his own
extensive body of work as a photographer,
collage artist and diarist, but he might as well
be describing a certain type of documentary-
making, in which the film’s eventual subject
emerges via happenstance rather than conscious
planning. Ironically, despite his ostensible faith
in serendipity, it was Beard and his close friend
Lee Radziwill who seemingly failed to recognise
that the unfinished, untitled and until now
unseen documentary project that they began
shooting in 1972 was turning into something
considerably richer and stranger than the
historical/sociological study of East Hampton,
New York state, that they’d originally envisaged.
Instead, their more experienced technical
collaborators Albert and David Maysles were
so struck by the personalities of two East
Hampton residents – Radziwill’s aunt and first
cousin, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (aka ‘Big
Edie’) and Edith Bouvier Beale (‘Little Edie’)
– that they later returned to their dilapidated
mansion Grey Gardens to make the famous 1975
56 | Sight&Sound | June 2018
documentary study of the women’s peculiar
lifestyle. This then spawned a bizarre subculture
that included, besides numerous pop-culture
references, a follow-up Maysles film (The Beales
of Grey Gardens, 2006), a stage play (Little Edie
and the Marble Faun, 2008), a Rufus Wainwright
song (2001), a Broadway musical (2006) and a
multiple-award-winning HBO dramatisation
(2009), the last three all sharing the original title
Grey Gardens. Meanwhile, the four reels of film
shot in 1972 were quietly shelved, and were
for many decades believed lost altogether.
Despite Beard and Radziwill’s involvement
with That Summer (the latter via a 2013 audio
interview with Sofia Coppola), the new film
doesn’t attempt to complete the original project,
a ship that has long since sailed. It seems that
Radziwill and her sister Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis were to be featured far more prominently,
since memories of their idyllic childhood in
East Hampton were a key inspiration for the
project (which was also to double as a historical/
sociological study of the area) and presumably
a strong potential marketing hook after its
completion. However, on the basis of what
was shot, and despite Radziwill’s frequent and
engaging onscreen presence (she shares her older
sister’s famous charisma), little useful light was
ultimately shed on her own experience other
than a few passing reminiscences (not always
complimentary) about her father Jack Bouvier.
Offsetting the tangled skeins of memory which
That Summer ends up traversing, Olsson has
wisely opted for a remarkably straightforward
structure. Between a bookending introduction
and conclusion filmed at Beard’s house in
Montauk, East Hampton, the four reels from
1972 are presented as shot (complete with
leader, mostly with sync sound and occasional
narrative interpolations from Beard or Radziwill
to cover up silent patches), with very brief
interludes revolving around the black-and-white
photographs that Beard took at the same time.
Aside from short intertitles at the start and end,
the Maysles brothers and the film Grey Gardens
aren’t mentioned at all, and That Summer works
surprisingly well as a standalone piece.
Or maybe not so surprisingly, since its value
lies less in its resurrection of footage long thought
vanished (considerable though that is: Grey
Gardens fans will be queuing in droves and are
unlikely to be disappointed) than in the way
that it has been co-opted, with remarkably little
overt editorial interference, into an essay on the
impermanence, persistence and importance of
memory. This is established at the start, when
Olsson observes Beard leafing through an album
of his favourite photographs, interspersing
artist-celebrity friends (Truman Capote, Bianca
and Mick Jagger, Jonas Mekas, Paul Morrissey,
Terry Southern, Andy Warhol) with glamour
assignments, trips to Africa and a record of his
modelling for a Francis Bacon portrait – the
latter a telling example of how artistic ‘truth’
is often reached only after decontextualising
and distorting the original source materials.
Beard does this himself, not merely by
assembling his images in the form of collages

Aside from short intertitles at
the start and end, the Maysles
and the film ‘Grey Gardens’
aren’t mentioned, and ‘That
Summer’ works surprisingly
well as a standalone piece
Shooting party: Peter Beard and Radziwill shot four reels before abandoning the film
but also by daubing the prints with assorted
marginalia in ink and sometimes even his
own blood. He’s not as viscerally intrusive
with regard to the present film, but his is the
dominant narrative voice on the soundtrack,
ensuring that compelling though the Beales
may be as onscreen subjects, he does at least
occasionally get to impose his own agenda.
However, this is ultimately very similar to
that of the Beales, for all their different modes of
expression. A sensualist at heart, Beard is strongly
drawn to the inner lives of places and objects,
and likes to be physically close to them (hence
his disdain for air travel and strong preference
for cruises). He was clearly enthralled by the
sheer wealth of memories embedded in the very
fabric of Grey Gardens. And not just the building;
the surrounding near-jungle tells its own story,
and even the Beales’ cats are named after people
in their lives: Biggles being Big Edie’s former
fiancé Horace Bigelow Allen, while Tedsy is
Jackie’s onetime brother-in-law Ted Kennedy.
Although Little Edie claims that “to dig up
the past is about the most cruel thing anybody
can do”, this attitude seems to stem more from
concerns about personal embarrassment than
a more generalised disdain for the potency
of memory: she has lived her entire life
surrounded by mementos, whether the kind
that an auctioneer might value or 20 sackfuls
of cat shit. And while she has similarly strong
opinions about the importance of privacy,
she is nonetheless happy to tantalise us with
startlingly revealing autobiographical details –
in particular a hazily narrated encounter with
her uncle (she rebuffs Big Edie’s goading use
of the word incest) that apparently taught her
“how perfectly terrible the male species is”.
But, as in the various incarnations of Grey
Gardens, it’s Big Edie who effortlessly dominates
the proceedings. Fearlessly uninhibited (minutes
into reel one, she disarmingly admits, “I haven’t
had a bath in eight years”), when a phone call
interrupts her performance of the French chanson
‘Parlez-moi d’amour’ she continues singing down
the receiver, leaving us to imagine her nonplussed
caller. She squabbles with her daughter at
every opportunity (reel four starts with a
heated debate about suitable food for visiting
raccoons) and jokes about murdering her, but
their physical and psychological inseparability
is as palpable as it is in any of the later films.
“Without memory, there’s no life,” says
Radziwill at one point, though precisely whose
memories and lives are being captured remains
an open question and may explain what
FILMS OF THE MONTH
appears to have been her decision to abandon
the project (neither she nor Beard discusses this
explicitly). Other issues – such as the precise
nature of the renovations at Grey Gardens that
Radziwill is shown supervising (at the behest
of Suffolk County officials, following alleged
complaints about the Beales’ lifestyle), and
how the Beales support themselves despite not
having physically left their home in decades – are
left similarly open-ended. But this was never
intended to be a film primarily about them.
The film’s interrogation and layering of
multiple memories is echoed by its shifting visual
texture, which comprises high-definition video
footage, handheld home movies (some shot by
Mekas and Warhol), the grainy 16mm reels that
form the bulk of the running time, and Beard’s
pin-sharp black-and-white photographs, also from
1972, which have the effect of simultaneously
bringing the historical material into much
sharper focus while distancing it by pinning
it down to a single aestheticised image. This
neatly parallels the way the soundtrack segues
between the (then) here and now, rambling verbal
memories and interpolated 2013/16 voiceover.
The 1972 footage concludes with an appropriately
hesitant rendition of Kurt Weill’s ‘September
Song’ (itself a rueful reflection on the passing of
time) by both Beales, with the more accomplished
singer, Big Edie, prompting her daughter mid-
performance by reciting the lyrics as plain
speech. Eartha Kitt’s more polished version
over the end credits has a similar effect to the
appearance of Beard’s stills, in that it crystallises
and decontextualises the song, distancing it from
the Beales specifically while emphasising its
appropriateness to the film’s subject as a whole –
not least in the way that it’s so ineffably moving.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by
Joslyn Barnes
David Österberg
Sound Design
Film & TV Fond
In collaboration with
Tobias Janson
Nejma Beard
and Mix
Henrik Garnov
SVT, DR K, YLE
Executive
Signe Byrge Producers
Sørensen
Based on Footage
©Thunderbolt
Productions LLC
Peter Beard
Andrea Barron
Directed by
Peter Beard
Production
Companies
Susan Rockefeller
Danny Glover
Jonas Mekas Dogwoof and Cinetic Tony Tabatznik
Andy Warhol Media present a
Additional Story, Thunderbolt In Colour
Cinematography Ranch, Louverture [1.78:1]
Albert Maysles Films, Final Cut for
Vincent Fremont Real production Distributor
Edited by Made with support Dogwoof
Per K. Kirkegaard from the Swedish
Göran Hugo Olsson Film Institute,
Original Music Danish Film
Goran Kajfes Institute, Nordisk
Montauk, East Hampton, New York, 2016. Peter Beard
discusses his work as a photographer, artist and
diarist before reminiscing about his attempt to make
a documentary in the summer of 1972 with his friend
Lee Radziwill (younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis), focusing on their childhood and the 20th-
century history of East Hampton. They shot four
reels of film in the crumbling mansion Grey Gardens,
where Radziwill’s aunt and cousin, Edith Ewing
Bouvier Beale and Edith Bouvier Beale (‘Big Edie’ and
‘Little Edie’), maintained a decades-long seclusion,
surrounded by cats, detritus and memories. During
filming, there are various interactions between
the Beales and assorted visitors, including local
government officials concerned about their living
standards, repairman Mr Salinger, their protective
lawyer William vanden Heuvel and Radziwill’s two
children. Beard and Radziwill abandon their project.
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 57
 Allure L’Amant double
Canada 2017 France/Belgium 2017
Directors: Carlos Sanchez, Jason Sanchez Director: François Ozon
Certificate 18 104m 52s

Reviewed by Nikki Baughan Reviewed by Tony Rayns

The gruelling cycle of abuse and the indelible Spoiler alert: this review reveals a plot twist
mark it leaves on the innocent is the subject of Does François Ozon deliberately open his lurid
REVIEWS

this dour debut from photographers-turned- psycho-sex-thriller (“inspired by Lives of the Twins
filmmakers Carlos and Jason Sanchez. The by Joyce Carol Oates” per the credits) by evoking
Canadian brothers, whose striking fine-art Nakata Hideo’s Ring diptych? A woman’s long
photographic works are often composed like film dark hair conceals her face in a salon. As the
stills, effectively translate their dynamic visual face is revealed, her gaze seems deranged. Then
style to the screen. Narratively, however, it’s a less we get a huge close-up of her eye. This, we soon
successful transition, the slight story struggling discover, is not the face of a vengeful wraith like
under the moral weight of its themes and that Ring’s Sadako but of Chloé, a chic, damaged young
overwhelming, often oppressive aesthetic. Hugs and learning: Wood, Stone woman who is attracted to and repulsed by rough
Evan Rachel Wood, making a return to the sex. An entirely different kettle of fishy backstory,
big screen after HBO’s epic Westworld, brings a unravelling Laura. As the latter manoeuvres their but Ozon’s mini-prologue tips us the wink that
concentrated rawness to protagonist Laura, whom friendship into sexual territory, Eva’s reaction it’s the woman we need to watch out for in his
we first meet having aggressive, anonymous seems ripped from sapphic cliché, her deer-in- story, not the man (or is that men?). Add L’Amant
sex with a blindfolded stranger. That’s an early the-headlights response giving way to genuine double to the long list of entertainments about
indication of the rage and desperation that feeling. Depending on her mood, Laura in return dangerously psychotic women who threaten
define her few human interactions, particularly treats Eva with affection, disdain or violence – the sanity and safety of everyone around them,
her uneasy relationship with her father (and including locking her in the basement – which few of them created by out gay men like Ozon.
boss) William, played by Denis O’Hare. worsens as the police begin to ask questions about The plot is set in motion by an ethical decision:
There’s something amiss between the two the teen’s disappearance. It’s textbook abusive psychoanalyst Paul Meyer (Jérémie Renier, back
that is never explicitly verbalised but is evident behaviour, which Eva is too naive, frightened with Ozon after Criminal Lovers and Potiche) stops
in his permanently haunted expression, the or, it’s implied, good-hearted to challenge. treating Chloé (Marine Vacth, back with Ozon
way she shrinks from his touch. It speaks of past The suggestion is that Laura has suffered her after Jeune et jolie) for a seemingly psychosomatic
experiences that have likely shaped Laura into own past abuses and is attempting to regain some pain in her gut because he has fallen for her.
adulthood; as well as her penchant for violent sex, form of control through the wilful domination of But that’s the last time that ethics get much of a
there are allusions to inappropriate behaviour others. That’s not made clear through most of the look-in. Chloé and Paul are shacked up together
and stalking, while the interest she takes in story, however, with audiences encouraged to draw in no time, their bliss clouded only by Paul’s
16-year-old pianist Eva (Julia Sarah Stone), whom their own conclusions from the shadowy colour dislike of Chloé’s cat and by the old crone next
she meets when cleaning the girl’s family home, palette, claustrophobic cinematography and the door, who’s had her late cat stuffed. Chloé soon
is uncomfortable from the moment she asks plaintive chords of Eva’s piano. William’s desperate discovers that Paul has a randier and altogether
the teen to touch the goosebumps on her arm. (and somewhat convenient) final-reel apology less ethical twin named Louis Delord (Renier
That Eva is also struggling with her own family for unnamed past transgressions finally sheds again, just ahead of Jacqueline Bisset in playing
dynamic – namely an overbearing mother whose some light but, given that Laura has absolutely no two roles in the movie) and he – being another
new boyfriend is forcing a house move – explains characterisation beyond her appalling behaviour, psychoanalyst – is soon ‘helping’ her to overcome
the youngster’s fixation with Laura, an older, in terms of dramatic context it’s too little, too late. her sexual inhibitions in the back-room of his
seemingly free-spirited woman who can do what Wood and Stone give tremendous, committed consulting room. Battered emotionally and
she wants. But while we see their friendship performances, which save the film from physically by seeing both men and frustrated
develop somewhat, it’s a stretch to believe that succumbing entirely to its sombre tone. Wood by Paul’s denial that he even has a twin brother
Eva would run off with Laura based on nothing in particular harnesses the unspoken tragedy and caginess about his adoption of his mother’s
more than a shared love of Nirvana and the of her character to powerful effect. But while maiden name, Chloé starts researching the Delord
smoking of several joints. Despite all the drinking, the idea of lives shaped by circumstance, of family and uncovers an exceedingly complicated
smoking and slow-motion dancing that indicate innocence forever lost, is a noble one, Allure plays history of sibling resentments and a rivalry for
Eva’s newfound freedom, it becomes even harder out more like a solemn series of visually arresting the affections of the same girl, now a bedridden
to understand why she stays with the obviously images than a complete, compelling story. victim. The proliferating live and dead cats turn
out to be not very relevant, but her enquiries are
Credits and Synopsis crammed with other directorial red herrings, not
to mention two Jacqueline Bissets, one benignly
matriarchal, the other gone to the dark side.
Produced by Les Films Christal, Julia Sarah Stone North America, present day. The morning after
Luc Déry Les Films Séville, Eva having agressive sex with a blindfolded stranger,
The story suggests that Chloé eventually finds
Kim McCraw micro_scope Denis O’Hare
thirtysomething Laura goes to a house-cleaning job peace and understanding – until the closing
Written by Produced with the William Drake
Carlos Sanchez financial participation Maxim Roy and meets the homeowner’s 16-year-old daughter, punchline brutally snatches away that illusion.
Jason Sanchez of Téléfilm Canada, Eva’s mom classical pianist Eva. A friendship develops, with each This is all even sillier than it sounds, with
Cinematographer Sodec - Société de Joe Cobden finding in the other sanctuary from domestic tensions:
Sara Mishara developpement Laura’s brother
the brothers at one point sharing Chloé’s bed
Editors
Eva argues with her overbearing mother, while Laura and kissing each other as gay lovers and Chloé
des enterprises
Jesse Riviere culturelles – Québec, In Colour avoids contact with her father. When she finds out that
Elisabeth Olga Québec - Crédit [2.12:1] Eva is unhappy with plans to move in with her mother’s later strapping on a dildo to penetrate Paul
Tremblay d’impôt cinéma et boyfriend, Laura convinces her to run away and stay from behind. (Perhaps she got the idea from
Production Designer télévision - Gestion Distributor at her home; gradually she manoeuvres the friendship seeing João Pedro Rodrigues’s masterly Odete
Emmanuel Fréchette SODEC, Canadian Eureka Entertainment
Music Composer Film or Video into sexual territory. A police hunt for the missing Eva [2005]?) Despite the escalating absurdities
Olivier Alary Production Tax Credit, pushes Laura into increasingly desperate behaviour, Ozon can’t resist the Hitchcockian impulse to
Sound Bell Media’s Harold including locking the teenager in the basement. Despite
Claude La Haye Greenberg Fund this, Eva develops feelings for Laura. Unsatisfied by
provide ‘scientific’ explanations for the various
Sylvain Bellemare In association with
their attempts at lovemaking, Laura goes in search derangements, so we’re also treated to a mini-
Bernard Gariépy The Movie Network
Strobl Les Films Christal of anonymous sex at a motel, where she is beaten up. lecture on the ‘parasite twin’ – a malformed
Costume Designer presents a micro_ Laura tells Eva that she was attacked by her father foetus which shrivels and dies in the mother’s
Valérie Bélègou scope production because she tried to stop him molesting her. Later, womb while its healthy sibling grows normally.
Laura’s father attempts to apologise for unnamed Chloé immediately accepts this as the complete
©micro_scope inc.
Production Cast past misdemeanours. After Eva escapes during a trip
to a swimming pool, Laura goes to her father’s house answer to her questions about her mysterious
Companies Evan Rachel Wood
Seville International, Laura Drake to tell him that she is happy alone, and drives away. gut pains: her own ‘parasite twin’ turned into a
cyst, she thinks, and is now causing her distress.

58 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

 Anon
Director: Andrew Niccol

Reviewed by Matthew Taylor

Whether operating within the realms of
cautionary science fiction or real-world

REVIEWS
drama, writer-director Andrew Niccol has
been consistent in his thematic concerns: the
ethical pitfalls of technological innovation and
advancement. His debut Gattaca (1997) imagined
a dystopia forged by eugenics, while his script for
Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998) conceived
of a life constructed through the prism of reality
television. The Hollywood satire S1m0ne (2002)
feels more pertinent now, with image rights
a thorny issue, than it did on release; drone-
warfare thriller Good Kill (2014), on the other
hand, already feels dated. In the wake of the
data-harvesting scandal enveloping Facebook,
Anon’s grim vision of a surveillance state that
has all but given up on privacy is timely indeed.
Alas, while boasting a disquieting premise and
some nifty visual trickery that might give any
episode of Black Mirror a run for its money, the
resulting movie is a turgid, stilted future-noir.
Anon opens with a plaintive quote from
Robert Browning’s epic ‘Paracelsus’: “Let there
be an end, a privacy, an obscure nook for me. I
want to be forgotten even by God.” In the film’s
sterile Manhattan of some years hence, the
Double trouble: Jérémie Renier, Marine Vacth right to be forgotten no longer exists. Citizens
are implanted with ‘eyes’, a sort of monstrous
Inevitably, this heralds the appearance of the the exuberance he brings to the task of realising upgrade to Google Glass that makes the
parasite as a phantom monster from the id. Chloé’s fantasies takes the film into Brian De material world – and the confidential data of
In short it’s an absurd farrago, but a farrago Palma territory: out-of-control psychosis runs individuals – a perpetually open book. These
embellished with Ozon’s lavish design ideas wild! Most viewers will have forgotten about devices also record their wearers’ every move,
and mise en scène. He fills the screen with visual the Ring-like prologue by the time that the uploading the footage to a cloud called ‘the
echoes and opposites, reversed mirror images revelations about Chloé in the closing scenes ether’. Accordingly, crime has been virtually
and CGI-assisted ‘twinning’ motifs, and uses come along, so they may be surprised to discover wiped out, with jaded detective Sal (Clive Owen)
quasi-organic sculptures and installations in the that so much of the film has occurred in her reduced to processing suicides and petty theft.
art museum where Chloé works as an attendant mind; even in the light of those revelations, it’s Then, suddenly, the unconscionable occurs
to suggest the evolution of her monstrous inner quite hard to say what, if anything, was ‘real’. – a rare slew of murders with a distinct pattern.
self. In the presskit, Ozon refers respectfully to But it doesn’t really matter. The film may have Playing back the victims’ neural detritus,
Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers as another inspiration classy actors and smart visuals, but it’s ultimately Sal realises that their implants were hacked,
(he asked his actors to see it; Vacth declined) but a typical movie ride on a tacky ghost train. making them witness their own deaths from
the perspective of the (concealed) assassin. It’s a
Credits and Synopsis horrifying conceit, one that Niccol visualises in
a manner akin to a first-person shooter game. A
lead through the ether points to an unidentifiable,
Produced by Art Director France 2 Cinéma, A film by François Cast Sandra Schenker
black-clad femme fatale (Amanda Seyfried),
Eric Altmayer Sylvie Olivé Scope Pictures Ozon Marine Vacth
Nicolas Altmayer Original Music Production A co-production of Chloé Fortin Dolby Digital who has somehow remained completely off the
Screenplay Composed, Companies Mandarin Production, Jérémie Renier In Colour
François Ozon Conducted and Mandarin Production Foz, Mars Films, Dr Paul Meyer/ [2.35:1] grid. This whisky-necking analogue fiend has
with the collaboration Performed by and Foz present Films Distribution, Louis Delord Subtitles a freelance line in damage control, scrubbing
of Philippe Piazzo Philippe Rombi in co-production France 2 Cinéma, Jacqueline Bisset
Loosely based on Sound Recordist with Mars Films, Scope Pictures Distributor
unsavoury elements from her clients’
Madame Schenker/
the novel Lives of Brigitte Taillandier Films Distribution, Made with the Chloé’s mother Curzon Artificial Eye timelines; Sal, posing as louche bachelor
the Twins by Joyce Costume Designer France 2 Cinéma, support of the Myriam Boyer
Carol Oates Pascaline Chavanne Scope Pictures Tax Shelter du Rose
Director of With the participation Gouvernement Dominique Reymond
Photography ©Mandarin of Canal+, Ciné+, Fédéral Belge via gynecologist/Dr
Manu Dacosse Production, Foz, France Télévisions Scope Invest Agnès Wexler
Editor Mars Films, Films In association with Fanny Sage
Laure Gardette Distribution, A Plus Image 7

Paris, now. Complaining of stubborn stomach
cramps, former model Chloé, 25, is referred by her
gynaecologist to psychoanalyst Paul Meyer. Paul ends
their sessions very soon because he has fallen in
love with her, and this turns out to be the start of an
idyllic relationship, clouded only by his dislike of her
cat Milo; they move into a new high-rise apartment
together. On the bus to a new job as an art museum
attendant, Chloé is sure she glimpses Paul with
another woman, but Paul later denies it. When Chloé
returns to the spot she finds that the building houses
the home/office of another psychiatrist, Louis Delord
– who turns out to be Paul’s identical-twin brother.
Paul denies having a brother and won’t say why he
dropped ‘Delord’ for his mother’s maiden name. Chloé
is soon having wild, rough sex with Louis and covering
herself by telling Paul that she is seeing psychiatrist
Agnes Wexler. As Paul and Louis begin to merge in her
mind, Chloé investigates the brothers’ past rivalry for
the affections of classmate Sandra Schenker. Paul
learns that Agnès Wexler has no knowledge of Chloé
and contacts Chloé’s estranged mother. Hearing
about ‘parasite twins’, Chloé becomes convinced that
a cyst found in her gut is the remains of a twin sister
from her mother’s womb. She comes to accept that
Louis was a figment of her imagination, but when
she next makes love with Paul her own twin appears
outside the 13th-floor window and smashes it.
The eyes have it: Amanda Seyfried

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 59

 Another News Story
United Kingdom 2017
Director: Orban Wallace
Certificate 12A 85m 44s

Sol, goes undercover as one such party.

While Anon’s glitchy memory logs
recall the sinister VR constructs of both Kathryn
REVIEWS

Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995) and Doug

Trumbull’s Brainstorm (1983), their fragility here is
particularly troubling, with the implication that
anyone’s dirty laundry can be effectively redacted.
It’s one of a few tantalising ideas that the film
dances around, but sadly these don’t ultimately
gel with the leaden, weirdly tawdry thriller plot.
Niccol’s hardboiled dialogue rings hollow and off-
key, though there’s the odd witty exception – “I
can’t believe my eyes,” laments Sal at one stage,
after his own implant is hacked, making him
suffer terrifying hallucinations. Mostly, though,
Sal is a drag to be around – less world-weary, Human interest: Another News Story
more plain weary – and a hackneyed backstory
involving a late son doesn’t make him any more Reviewed by Ros Cranston from the journalists recording their reports
sympathetic. His heated interplay with Seyfried’s The approach this innovative and urgent on location to the final studio broadcast.
icy outlaw, meanwhile, never truly catches documentary takes to illuminating the refugee The main action takes place in September
fire. Conceptually unsettling but dramatically crisis in Europe is unlike any other coverage 2015, as we follow refugees and news crews
inert, Anon is, ironically, all too forgettable. you’re likely to have seen. As well as following en route from Lesbos to the Hungarian
the refugees themselves, it focuses on a few of border and onward to the promised land of
Credits and Synopsis the many journalists covering the topic, most of Germany. The audience is caught up in some
them from American and European television uncomfortably gripping moments. In Lesbos
stations. Some of these correspondents are we’re made complicit in the thrill of the chase
Produced by Production Joe Pingue
Andrew Niccol Companies Lester Goodman uncomfortable with their role in the situation, for a good story and the best footage, when a
Oliver Simon K5 International while others appear to see it as just another job. news crew spot a boat on the horizon and sprint
Producers presents in In Colour
Daniel Baur association with Attitudes range from those of Tolstoy-invoking to the shoreline to get shots of the exhausted,
Oda Schaefer Sierra/Affinity Distributor news producer Bruno, declaring “Happiness is traumatised refugees’ arrival. One member
Written by A K5 Film production Sky Cinema
Andrew Niccol An Andrew
universal, misery is individual,” to correspondent of the crew is visibly irked at being caught on
Director of Niccol film Federico’s glib assertion, “This is the news, this Wallace’s camera, and denies that she is any part
Photography Executive
Amir Mokri Producers
is TV – it’s not supposed to make you think.” of the story – but her testy reaction reinforces
Editor Howard Kaplan Another News Story is the feature-length the filmmakers’ point that they are allowing
Alex Rodriguez Patrick Newall debut of Orban Wallace, whose background a wider understanding of the situation by
Production Daniel Bekerman
Designer Sasha R. Prestel in music videos and commercials is evident highlighting the choices that media teams make.
Philip Ivey in the stylish cinematography and potent Young reporter Francesco explains that
Music
Christophe Beck Cast use of subtly plangent music. The film is journalists are always under pressure to find
Sound Designer Clive Owen niftily structured, with scenes on the ground “human stories” – a trait presumably shared with
Aaron Glascock Sal Frieland
Costume Designer Amanda Seyfried
intercut with news coverage from across documentary filmmakers. He adds sardonically,
Christopher the girl the world, sometimes seamlessly cutting “After a while we are eating human stories.”
Hargadon Colm Feore
Visual Effects Detective
This discomfort permeates the film, which
Chimney Charles Gattis Credits and Synopsis at the same time is laced with humour, in the
Stunt Co- Sonya Walger wry self-awareness of some of the seasoned
ordinators Kristen
Layton Morrison Mark O’Brien journalists. One of the undoubted stars of the
Producers Leo Smith In Colour
Cyrus Frear
Orban Wallace [2.35:1] film is producer Bruno, despite his proclamations
Verity Wislocki ©Gallivant Film, to the contrary (“You’re not going to make a
New York City, the near future. Crime has been Director of Wislocki Films Ltd Distributor
radically curbed thanks to a device called ‘the eye’, Photography Production Wislocki Films star out of me, I cherish my anonymity”). He
an implant that records citizens’ movements and Josh Allott Companies cuts a distinctly Humphrey Bogart-like figure:
Editor Gallivant Film and
displays their personal information for all to see. Dominic Stabb Wislocki Films
laconic, jaded, with a charismatic turn of phrase
Investigating a rare series of murders, detective Composers Co-producer SE15 and a casually stylish way with a cigarette.
Sal Frieland notes that the victims’ implants have Ash Koosha Productions
Another eloquent contributor to the film
been hacked, hiding the killer’s identity. Sal follows Noemie Ducimetiere A film by Orban
a lead to an unnamed woman who has somehow Sound Wallace is Mahasen, a Syrian refugee whose journey
managed to conceal her entire digital footprint we follow across Europe. She is dignified and
from the world. Learning that the woman scrubs A documentary, made in September 2015, about determined, and the filmmakers give her time
the refugee crisis in Europe. The filmmakers
unsavoury elements from clients’ records for a fee, to express her views about the bigger picture as
Sal poses as an interested party to make contact. follow several refugees, including Mahasen, a
woman travelling alone from Syria to Germany, well as about her own situation. Her gratitude for
While trying to ascertain her true identity, Sal finds
while also focusing on some of the many Angela Merkel’s expansive opening of German
himself falling for his quarry. Following a night spent
together, the woman flees after seeing through Sal’s news crews reporting on the situation. doors to refugees is touching and heartfelt. But
cover. Sal finds his partner murdered nearby. Warned A group of refugees arrive in an overcrowded by the time Mahasen reaches Germany, the
not to give chase, Sal finds that his own eye has boat on the Greek island of Lesbos. They are situation has become more complex, and her
been hacked, allowing the woman to track his every exhausted but full of hope for their future in Europe.
They travel, mostly on foot and by train, to the
strength and composure finally crumble.
move. When he refuses to back down, Sal realises The film concludes in Paris, after the terrorist
that his recorded memories – including those of his Hungarian border, where there are confrontations
late son – are being deleted. His hacked eye makes with the authorities, who try to keep them out of attack on the Bataclan theatre in November
him experience violent hallucinations, leading to the country. Mahasen finally arrives in Germany. 2015, and we catch up with Bruno, once again
his suspension for shooting a stranger. Receiving In November, following the terrorist attack on in pursuit of the biggest stories. He sums up:
the Bataclan theatre in Paris, Mahasen becomes
instructions to meet the woman, Sal finds her held “Fear combined with propaganda – it’s fatal,
captive by Cyrus, her jealous former lover. Claiming aware that attitudes towards refugees are hardening,
but is thrilled to be reunited with her children literally.” This vital documentary succeeds in
responsibility for the murders and the hacking, Cyrus
when they join her after years of separation. challenging the viewer to seek out the complex
tries to kill Sal but is shot dead by the woman.
depths beneath the surface of news coverage.

60 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

Blockers The Breadwinner
Director: Kay Cannon Canada/Ireland/Luxembourg/USA 2017
Certificate 15 101m 58s Director: Nora Twomey
Certificate 12A 93m 12s

Reviewed by Vadim Rizov Reviewed by

Blockers began as a script unpromisingly titled Pamela Hutchinson
Cherries, in which three fathers try to prevent See Rushes Parvana, the young lead of Nora

REVIEWS
their daughters from going through on a pact to on page 10 Twomey’s The Breadwinner,
collectively lose their virginities on prom night. tells her father that she has
When producers Hayden Schlossberg and Jon outgrown the stories she
Hurwitz (writers of the Harold & Kumar films) used to love. The trouble is not that she is too
came on board, they rewrote the script (still old for stories, but that the difficulties of her
solely credited to original writers Brian and Jim day-to-day life are too pressing for her to believe
Kehoe) to change one of the parents to a mother. in happy endings any more. Parvana lives in
Director Kay Cannon (the screenwriter of the Kabul; her father is disabled, her family is poor
Pitch Perfect films, making her directorial debut) and she is regularly harassed and threatened
takes credit for shifting much of the script’s with violence. As a female in Taliban-controlled
attention from the parents to the students and Afghanistan, she is unable to work, go out in
adding a plotline in which one of the three girls Problem parents: John Cena, Leslie Mann public without a male relative or even shop at
is a lesbian struggling to accept her identity. Now the market, let alone attend school. When, later
determinedly less unsavoury than ‘overprotective tropes here, Hunter wants nothing to do with in the film, she is coaxed to start telling her baby
dads take an intense interest in policing the the other parents’ interfering ways – until he brother a fairy story, her narrative absorbs all
sexuality of their daughters’, this is a studio becomes convinced that it’s his duty to stop the terrors of her real life: her hero is followed
comedy following the usual post-Farrelly/Apatow Sam losing her virginity with a partner of by a mysterious evil at every turn, and unless
pattern of being putatively gross but progressively the wrong gender identity, which is nice but he completes a series of seemingly impossible
right-on. Raunch and milder comedy share equal probably still not really any of his business. tasks, the people in his village will starve.
time with lessons learned and hugs dispensed. Shot and cut without noticeable technical The film is a loose, animated adaptation of
Single mom Lisa (Leslie Mann) is close to her problems, Blockers is head and shoulders above Deborah Ellis’s award-winning children’s novel
loving daughter Julie (Kathryn Newton) – too the likes of similarly marketed rated-for-adults of the same name, which was inspired by a series
close, unwilling to let her leave the Chicago comedies such as Bad Moms (2016), which leaned of interviews with Afghan refugees. Parvana is
suburbs for faraway UCLA. While Julie’s on endless song cues deployed at deafening an endearing and courageous heroine, but the
wish to lose her virginity to her boyfriend is a volume and much ‘comical’ slow motion to protagonist of the fairy story is a boy, because
romantically framed part of a wholesome all- pad out the running time. Blockers is executed in Kabul women are confined to domestic lives
American tradition, her friend Kayla (Geraldine with enough confidence for physical gags that rather than daring adventures. When Parvana’s
Viswanathan) is more flip about the project, go beyond endless improv, and all performers father is arrested by the Taliban, however, she
choosing a casually blithe partner for the night are game and adept. But no jokes stand out decides to become the hero of her own story
(standout Miles Robbins as a man-bunned drug particularly, and while the reconciliations and and save her family from starvation, by cutting
savant with a gift for infused macaroons and life lessons are less drearily plot-stopping than her hair and wearing her deceased brother’s
similarly complicated edibles, nailing a very usual, Blockers isn’t nearly as aspirationally clothes. In this guise, she can work, shop and
specific and new type); father Mitchell (John productive in ‘empowering young women’ as keep the wolf from the door. Although the risks
Cena) must learn to trust in Kayla’s ability the self-reflexive dialogue and talking points of discovery are terrible to contemplate, she
to make decisions for herself. Sam (Gideon on same from cast and crew indicate is the gains confidence from another cross-dressing,
Adlon) has twin arcs to deal with: coming goal. Parents don’t need to worry, as three hard-working companion: Shauzia, who is saving
to terms with her unacknowledged lesbian separate case-study girls ultimately make the up to escape her abusive father. Engagingly,
identity and reconciling with estranged, right decision (ie, the one their parent wants) The Breadwinner weaves Parvana’s fairytale in
long-absent dad Hunter (Ike Barinholtz). In without external guidance, neatly resolving and out of her real travails, which are infinitely
the most unorthodox variation on parental three strands without much effort or friction. more horrific, despite being more prosaic.
The film is clearly intended for a juvenile
Credits and Synopsis audience, but the material is relentlessly
harrowing and offers little relief from the
Produced by DMG Entertainment Ramona Young Waukegan, Illinois, the present. Three childhood best
atmosphere of oppression, savage violence
Evan Goldberg production Angelica friends resolve to collectively lose their virginity on and fear. Parvana witnesses a firing squad at
Seth Rogen Executive Producers
James Weaver Nathan Kahane In Colour senior prom night. Raised by and close to her single her father’s prison; her frail mother is brutally
Jon Hurwitz Joseph Drake [2.35:1] mother Lisa, Julie is nonetheless determined to attend beaten. The promise of a traditional happy-ever-
Hayden Schlossberg Chris Cowles far-off UCLA against her mom’s wishes. Kayla has a after is also denied Parvana: while an arranged
Chris Fenton Josh Fagen Distributor good relationship with both her parents, despite the
Written by Dave Stassen Universal Pictures marriage might save the family finances, or
Brian Kehoe
overprotective tendencies of her well-meaning father
Jonathan McCoy International provide an escape from war-torn Kabul, the
James Kehoe UK & Eire Mitchell. Sam is on good terms with her mother and
Director of stepfather, but estranged from her long-absent father characters in The Breadwinner darkly hint that
Photography Cast Hunter, and has not told anyone that she is a lesbian. married life is another nightmare of its own.
Russ Alsobrook Leslie Mann After the girls depart for prom night, Lisa and Mitchell
Edited by Lisa An opening sequence sardonically sketches
Stacey Schroeder Ike Barinholtz accidentally see the girls’ group text message on Julie’s the history of Afghanistan as continually torn
Production Designer Hunter laptop and decide to stop them. Hunter tries to deter
Brandon Tonner- John Cena Lisa and Mitchell, but tags along when he worries that
between rival empires, and the outbreak of
Connolly Mitchell his daughter will ignore her sexual identity (which he war in 2001 provides a backdrop for its second
Music Kathryn Newton half, but The Breadwinner’s main theme is the
Mateo Messina Julie
long ago gleaned) and go ahead with losing her virginity
Sound Mixer Geraldine to the wrong gender. The girls repeatedly elude their Taliban’s stifling of female liberties. Indeed,
Rodney Gurulé Viswanathan parents, who pursue them from the prom to a house this engrossing film, written and directed by
Costume Designer Kayla party and finally a hotel. Lisa sneaks into Julie’s room,
Sarah Mae Burton Gideon Adlon women and executive-produced by Angelina
then realises she’s acting wrongly and leaves before
Sam
her daughter loses her virginity to her boyfriend. Kayla Jolie, hits extremely hard in depicting the
Production Sarayu Blue
Companies Marcie decides to defer sleeping with her last-minute date until life of women under extreme oppression.
Universal Pictures Graham Phillips a later time; Mitchell storms in, and Kayla calms him The animation goes some way to making the
presents in Austin down. Sam decides not to go through with sex with her
association with Jimmy Bellinger
material more palatable. The adults have stylised
Good Universe a Chad
male date and gets together with her crush Angelica. features, long faces and sharply hooked noses,
Point Grey/Hurwitz Miles Robbins Three months later, Julie drives with her two
& Schlossberg/ Conner best friends to her freshman year at UCLA.
while the younger characters are snub-
nosed cuties, especially Parvana’s baby

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 61

 A Cambodian Spring
United Kingdom/Ireland/Canada/Estonia 2017
Director: Chris Kelly
Certificate 15 126m 7s

Reviewed by Hannah McGill

The case of Boeung Kak lake in Cambodia
seems about as straightforward an injustice as
REVIEWS

they come: citizens illegally evicted, properties

bulldozed, homes subjected to flooding,
inadequate compensation reluctantly offered,
all thanks to a government placing profit firmly
before people. The story has the added poetic
flourish of an affront to nature: by trying to
reclaim the land around and beneath a vast and
beloved body of water, the developers and their
government cronies appear to have destabilised
the very ecosystem of the area, disturbing the
water cycle and ushering in flooding and sewage
problems. But as is revealed in this elegant,
downbeat account of the residents’ long battle for
a fairer settlement, even the staunchest protesters
and the most seemingly solid case can falter
in the face of entrenched indifference; and the
sheer complexity of human personalities and
Tanks for sharing: The Breadwinner relationships can muddy the clearest cause.
British director Chris Kelly observed the
brother. Twomey’s previous credits include the first time, is mocked by a shopkeeper and torrid events around the Boeung Kak protests
co-directing The Secret of Kells (2009), and fails to hide her delight – he can’t understand for close to a decade, and the result is an elegiac
the animation here is even more ambitious. why this boy is so happy to be teased. documentary that feels at once bitterly sad –
In the brilliantly executed fantasy and history The terrific ending sequence crosscuts we see people ignored, insulted and beaten
sequences, colourful 3D paper-cuts expand on the between Parvana’s hellish attempt to free her for attempting to defend their land, and at
style of Lotte Reiniger, while recurring circular father from prison, her mother’s astonishing times simply weeping for its loss – and rather
geometric patterns recall Islamic decorative art. defiance of an aggressive male relative and the arm’s-length. A highly complex situation is
There are brief, welcome moments of comedy, climax of the fairy story. In the frenzy of her summarised by very brief onscreen captions, and
such as when Shauzia hijacks Parvana’s story, own heroics and the act of storytelling, Parvana though the developers and government officials
and fleeting respites in the tone, as sparse as the uncovers the buried truth about the death presumably have some sort of justifications for
raisins scattered over the family’s frugal meals of of her older brother. To defeat the villainous their actions, these are not detailed or defended
rice and lentils. Emboldened by their male drag, elephant king, her hero repeats this distressing on camera. One does yearn for a little level-headed
the girls sneak into a confectioner’s and snaffle truth out loud. The Breadwinner adopts the analysis from a point somewhere between
fallen sweets from the floor, or dream of a new same strategy: describing the injustices of the complacent platitudes of the authorities
life on the coast. The most touching moment a cruel regime in terms that children can (“Cambodia will become a beautiful country,
of levity is when Parvana, passing as male for easily understand, in order to topple it. with a city that is attractive to the whole world!”)
and the rage of the protesters (“You are crazy
Credits and Synopsis for money, and you hurt your own people.”)
The film resists the pull to idealise its protester
community, however, depicting in unsparing
Produced by J.R. Fountain the Talent Fund Developed with the Canadian Film or Shauzia
Anthony Leo Animation Director With the participation assistance of The Video Tax Credit Laara Sadiq terms the unravelling of its internal bonds of
Andrew Rosen Fabian Erlinghäuser of Bord Scannán Belinda Stronach Production Fattema/old woman friendship and the ensuing public sniping. The
Paul Young na hÉireann/the Foundation, Corus partners: Studio Shaista Latif
Tomm Moore ©Breadwinner Irish Film Board Entertainment, 352, Guru Studio Soraya predicament of campaigning monk Venerable
Stephan Roelants Canada Inc./Cartoon Produced with Telefilm Canada, The Executive Producers Ali Badshah Luon Sovath, meanwhile, forms an intriguing
Screenplay Saloon (Breadwinner) the financial Harold Greenberg Angelina Jolie Nurullah/Talib
Anita Doron Limited/Melusine participation of Gaia Fund, Bord Scannan Gerry Shirren security man
character study of its own. A man at once
Screen Story Productions S.A. Entertainment, Shaw na hEireann/the Mimi Polk Gitlin Kawa Ada driven to act against his masters, and clearly
Deborah Ellis Production Rocket Fund, Artemis Irish Film Board, Jon Levin Razaq
Based on her book Companies Rising Foundation, Creative Europe Regina K. Scully Noorin Gulamgaus
Director of An Aircraft Pictures/ Broadcasting Produced with Eric Beckman Idrees/Sulayman
Photography Cartoon Saloon/ Authority of Ireland, the financial David Jesteadt Patrick McGrath
Sheldon Lisoy Melusine Productions Ontario Media participation of Film Mary Bredin Zaki
Editor film in association Development Fund Luxembourg, Frank Falcone Finn Jackson Parle
Darragh Byrne with Jolie Pas Corporation, The Bord Scannán na Karim Amer Lily Erlinghäuser
Art Directors Productions Harold Greenberg hÉireann/the Irish Jehane Noujaim
Reza Riahi With the support Fund, RTÉ, The Movie Film Board, Telefilm In Colour
Ciaran Duffy of Film Fund Network, Canadian Canada, Talent Fund, [2.35:1]
Music Luxembourg Broadcasting GKIDS, Ontario Voice Cast
Mychael Danna Produced with the Corporation Media Development Saara Chaudry Distributor
Jeff Danna participation of In association Corporation - Film and Parvana Studiocanal Limited
Sound Design Telefilm Canada and with GKIDS Television Tax Credits, Soma Chhaya

Parvana is a girl living in Kabul with her parents, her
sister and her baby brother. When her father is arrested
and taken to prison by the Taliban, her family faces
starvation, as women are not allowed out in public unless
accompanied by a man and cannot be served in shops.
Parvana cuts her hair and dresses in her dead brother
Sulayman’s clothes. She works and shops, providing
for the family. She befriends another girl, Shauzia, who
does the same. One day at work Parvana is recognised
by one of the men who arrested her father, but war has
just broken out and he is taken away to fight in the war
that has just broken out. Parvana’s sister is betrothed
to a relative in Mazar-e-Sharif and the family plan to
move there. Nevertheless, Parvana pleads to go one
last time to visit her father in prison. While she is out,
one of the Mazar-e-Sharif relatives comes to take
the family away. At the prison, Parvana discovers the
place is being emptied, with the fitter inmates sent to
the war; a friend smuggles her father out. Parvana’s
mother refuses to go to Mazar-e-Sharif and begins to
take her children home instead, but they are separated.
These scenes are intercut with the climax of a fairy
story that Parvana has been telling her family: a boy
defeats the elephant king by telling the truth, which
is that Sulayman was killed by a landmine disguised
as a toy. Parvana’s family are reunited on the road.
Buddha talk: Luon Sovath

62 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

 The Cured
Ireland/United Kingdom/France/USA 2017
Director: David Freyne
Certificate 15 95m 9s

terrified of the possible consequences of doing Reviewed by Adam Nayman

so, Sovath wears an increasingly panicked One of these days, an emerging director is
smile as his superiors seek to silence him, going to make a movie about a specific social

finally deciding to flee Cambodia altogether
for the relative safety of the US, where he
works to draw more attention to the cause.
Scenes of Sovath and campaigner Tep Vanny
addressing various well-meaning bodies on
US soil point not only to the importance of
international attention to causes such as
Boeung Kak but also to the immense physical
and psychological distance between American
do-gooding and Cambodian need. Meanwhile,
Vanny’s one-time ally in the protest, Toul Srey
Pov, becomes more estranged from her friend
the more glory and attention the latter accrues.
The film plays up this personal detail, perhaps
to emphasise the emotional toll exacted
by intractable struggle against ingrained
corruption, and perhaps to remind us that
moral purity is as elusive in friendships as it is
in property deals and politics. “Only God does
no wrong,” Pov observes, as she looks over
old photographs of herself and Vanny, “and
he probably did something wrong too.”
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Production Edwina Forkin
Chris Kelly Companies Bob Moore
Written by Little Ease Films
Chris Kelly in association with In Colour
Filmed by Dartmouth Films, [1.78:1]
Chris Kelly Zanzibar Films Subtitles
Edited by & Eyesteelfilm
Chris Kelly presents a film Distributor
Ryan Mullins by Chris Kelly Dartmouth Films
Pawel Stec Developed with
Original Music the assistance of
Written and Northern Ireland
Arranged by/ Screen, Irish Film
All Instruments Board, Estonian
Performed by Digital Centre,
James Holden Baltic Film and
Sound Recordist Media School
William Kelly Tallinn University
Executive
©Little Ease Films Producers
Company Limited Christopher Bird
A documentary about some of the people caught up
in a land-rights protest in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,
from 2009-2015. Thousands of residents are evicted
or otherwise forced out of their homes when the
Boeung Kak lake area is leased to a private developer
with close ties to the Cambodian prime minister,
Hun Sen. Farmers who object to the appropriation
of their land are imprisoned and shot at. A protest
movement led by residents Toul Srey Pov and Tep
Vanny and local monk Venerable Luon Sovath pursues
recognition of the residents’ rights, challenging the
World Bank for continuing to provide millions in aid
to the Cambodian government while it is enacting
forced evictions. They succeed in convincing the
World Bank to freeze payments, but Sovath faces
opposition from senior monks, who insist he should
remain apolitical. The residents are offered a land
concession by the prime minister, but they remain
dissatisfied, as homes are still being bulldozed. Pov
and Vanny, along with fellow activists, are arrested
and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. When Pov
subsequently withdraws to spend more time with
her child, Vanny takes a more active role; she finds
fame and acclaim for her work, but their friendship
fractures, and the protest movement splits. Sovath, in
fear for his life, relocates to the US. Other Cambodian
workers undertake strikes and protests. The
opposition party strikes a deal with the government
and agrees to stop supporting the protests. The
World Bank resumes payments to Cambodia.
REVIEWS
or political problem and then tell journalists
it’s actually a metaphor for zombies. Until that
ironic turnabout, we’re going to keep getting
symbolic genre fare like The Cured, which
imagines a bizarre plague that’s decimated the
Emerald Isle. Picking up where most such films
leave off – after an antidote has been developed
and applied to most of the afflicted – David
Freyne’s debut imagines a society struggling to
reintegrate an entire cohort of former flesh eaters.
The ideological debate over what to do with ‘the
cured’ leads to a new – and yet familiar – form of
sectarian violence. The story is set in the present, Personal chopper: Ellen Page
but ‘the Troubles’ are back with a vengeance.
Freyne signals his allegorical intentions early There’s a lot of plot in The Cured, and it isn’t
on, when we learn that the disease has been always doled out that effectively; a subplot about
dubbed ‘the Maze virus’, a reference to Bobby a scientist’s fixation on a serum-resistant patient
Sands that inverts the legend of his hunger strike doesn’t pull its intended emotional weight, and
into a wave of literally carnivorous behaviour. The Conor’s transformation from aggrieved alienation
IRA is even more deliberately evoked through to pure villainy feels rushed and pat. But there are
the characters of Senan (Sam Keeley) and Conor also outstanding elements, from Piers McGrail’s
(Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), whose second-class- sharp, versatile cinematography (never better
citizen status after being healed (and assigned the than in the night-time scenes) to the superb
military equivalent of a parole officer) manifests location scouting and some excellent action
in a shared frustration expressed in different choreography rendering an urban outbreak (and
ways. Senan, who is living with his widowed military suppression) in realistically chaotic
sister-in-law Abbie (Ellen Page), is racked with terms. And the acting is excellent: not only Keeley,
guilt over what he did during his illness, suffering who has the right faraway, long-suffering look
nightmarish flashbacks to acts of violence that for a man being consumed by his memories,
he was powerless to control (the idea of zombies but also Page, nearly unrecognisable in a part
who remember is novel and affecting). Conor’s whose essential thanklessness she redeems. As
conscience, meanwhile, is clean – a sign that his to whether the film is scary (the truly crucial
humanity may have been screwed up to begin information about a title trying to make it on
with – and he takes his friend’s fragility as an the genre circuit), it’s to Freyne’s credit that he
opportunity to sign him up for an underground mostly resists the sort of cheap jolts that come
insurrectionary movement whose plans have with this well-trodden territory – giving the few
potentially catastrophic consequences. that he does use a higher charge than usual.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Ireland Screen, Invest Cantor Ireland, the present. Following an outbreak of the
Rachael O’Kane Northern Ireland Oscar Nolan mysterious Maze virus, most European countries
Rory Dungan Funded by the Cillian
Ellen Page Broadcasting Peter Campion are rebuilding their infrastructures and trying to
Written by Authority of Ireland Luke reintegrate those who were purged of the disease by a
David Freyne with the Television Hilda Fay special serum. The cured are treated as second-class
Director of Licence fee, Jo citizens, and most of them suffer horrible memories
Photography Tilted Pictures David Herlihy
Piers McGrail
of what they did as cannibalistic zombies. There is
In association with Declan
Editor Radió Teilifis Éirann, Leslie Conroy also another group, the Resistants, whose bodies
Chris Gill CAA, WME, BAC Katie reject the cure; they are kept in prison-like seclusion
Production Designer Films Distribution, Natalia Kostrzewa while scientists work on a stronger antidote. Senan,
Conor Dennison Indiefilms 5, Yellow Alison who is racked with guilt over killing his brother while
Composers Moon, Bord Scannán
Rory Friers Na hÉireann/ In Colour infected, moves in with his sister-in-law Abbie and her
Niall Kennedy Irish Film Board [2.35:1] young son Cillian. He doesn’t tell Abbie what really
Sound Designer/ Executive Producers happened to her husband, remaining quiet and trying
Supervising Aaron Farrell Distributor to keep his head down as neighbours leave graffiti
Sound Editor Aidan Elliott Arrow Films
Jens Rosenlund
attacking him as ‘scum’. Meanwhile, Conor, a former
Mark Huffam
Petersen Kelly Bush Novak lawyer who’s furious at the money, social standing
Costume Designer John Keville and respect he’s lost since being cured, tries to
Tiziana Corvisieri Conor Barry recruit Senan for a rebellion that involves freeing the
resistants. Having bonded with Cillian – and worrying
©Tilted Pictures
Limited Cast about Conor’s activities – Senan confesses to Abbie;
Production Ellen Page she tearfully casts him out. During the chaos that
Companies Abbie ensues after Conor’s group infiltrates a holding facility,
Developed with Sam Keeley unleashing a group of zombies, Abbie begs her brother-
the assistance Senan
of Bord Scannán Tom Vaughan-
in-law to save Cillian, who has become separated.
Na hÉireann/ Lawlor On his quest, Senan confronts and kills Conor, and
Irish Film Board Conor rescues Cillian, bringing him home. But the boy is
Made in Northern Paula Malcomson unexpectedly bitten. Senan tells Abbie that he can
Ireland with funding Dr Lyons help him; he carries Cillian away towards an uncertain
from Northern Stuart Graham
future, as order is gradually restored around them.

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 63

 The Deminer Edie
Sweden/Norway/Denmark/Finland 2017 United Kingdom 2017
Director: Hogir Hirori Director: Simon Hunter
Certificate 15 82m 57s Certificate 12A 101m 27s

Reviewed by Trevor Johnston Reviewed by Trevor Johnston

Many of the mines and roadside bombs that Simon Hunter’s third feature centres on Edie
have wrought such carnage in Iraq since the (Sheila Hancock), a woman in her eighties
REVIEWS

removal of Saddam Hussein are relatively crude
devices. Comprising a container of explosives
linked to a detonator by a length of wire, they
can be disabled by the careful cutting of that
connecting cable. It takes a steady hand and
nerves of steel to accomplish this, however, and
the knowledge that one false move could prove
fatal tends to limit bomb-disposal duties to a
particular strain of military personnel. It’s not
without reason that US ground forces came up
with the nickname ‘Crazy Fakhir’ for former
Iraqi army colonel Fakhir Berwari, responsible
for clearing many hundreds of devices left
behind by Saddam’s forces – and thanks to a
rediscovered stash of home video shot at the time,
we can now share their incredulity. This guy
heeds no warnings, using sticks, his bare hands
and even a handy pickaxe to uncover booby
traps, mines and improvised explosive devices
without a second thought for his own safety.
As the footage mounts up, we’re left wondering
whether he’s a humanitarian hero for our age
or someone so desensitised by the devastation
he’s already seen that he’s simply past caring.
Comparisons to Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt
Locker (2008) are inevitable. But where that film
was evidently a carefully mounted dramatic
construct, a good deal of what we see in this
documentary is utterly believable handheld
video, where the at times amateurish camerawork
only increases the tension, since it doesn’t always
adhere to conventional suspense-building editing
rhythms. Thus the explosions, when they come
(and they do), are heart-stoppingly unpredictable,
though set against a psychologically
rather opaque feature-length portrait.
The Deminer never really attempts to get under
Fakhir’s skin, but it provides vivid coverage
of his actions – something he clearly wanted
documenting, whether in the video footage shot
between 2003 and 2008 or the later material
(given a more professional sheen by co-director
Shinwar Kamal) covering his exploits with
Peshmerga forces battling to retake Mosul from
Islamic State control. It would appear that he
wanted to be seen as an inspirational figure
engaged in trying to reclaim a peaceful Iraq for
Portrait in courage: Fakhir Berwari
future generations, and with very few positive
messages coming out of Iraq in the past couple
of decades, one can hardly blame director Hogir
Hirori – a Kurdish-born Swedish resident – for
not really challenging that projection.
If anything, the film is an astonishingly
depressing catalogue of the sheer amount of
human effort deployed in bringing bloodshed to
post-Saddam Iraq: first it’s the vengeful Ba’athists
laying the mines, then small-time locals in their
pay, before foreign influences start to fill up
the power vacuum; by 2014, the multinational
outside forces of the Islamic State have rolled in.
With such a legacy of tears, it’s hard to see much
hope for future generations, including Fakhir’s
son Abdulla, left to fob off his father’s circling debt
collectors. Moreover, in the interests of limiting
its focus to Fakhir’s startlingly heroic exploits, the
narrative proves slightly hazy on his specifically
Kurdish identity and how that fits into Iraq’s
blood-splattered fragmentation – though isolated
moments bring mutterings of “traitor” from a
street crowd and an instance of misunderstanding
between the Kurdish Peshmerga and an
Arabic-speaker on the outskirts of Mosul.
While the film may not quite deliver the
full package, its nerve-shredding reportage
of bullish, bustling Fakhir snipping his way
though sundry live devices that could be
remotely detonated by mobile phone at any
second, does somewhat recalibrate one’s
notions of bravery. For that reason alone, this
has to be accounted significant viewing.
pressured into moving to a retirement home
after the death of her controlling husband.
But this is thankfully not a film about grief at
all: after an early reveal about the borderline
abusive attitude of her late spouse, both
Edie and the film quickly move on to focus
instead on her newfound freedom.
Rather than falling into the miserabilist tone
that so often characterises British films about the
elderly middle classes – Tom Browne’s Radiator
(2014) and Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years (2015), for
example – Edie remains decidedly optimistic and
uplifting. Looking through a stash of old letters,
the widow finds an old postcard from her father:
on it is a picture of a Scottish mountain, and a note
promising that father and daughter would climb
it together one day. They never did. In a smart
trick, the film has Edie turn this old regret into a
new hope, and in a kind of inverse of the narrative
of 45 Years, sorrow from the past pushes her into
action: she resolves to climb the mountain alone.
Edie’s subsequent meet-cute and unlikely
friendship with a young man, Jonny (Kevin
Guthrie), as well as her eventual trek all the way
up the mountain, are undeniably charming but
not altogether convincing. Despite the film’s
naturalistic aesthetic, it quickly becomes clear
that Edie is more escapist melodrama than slice-of-
life British realism. Devoid of substantial subtext,
its themes and meanings are unambiguously

Credits and Synopsis

Co-director Production In collaboration A documentary portrait of former Iraqi army colonel

Shinwar Kamal Companies with DR - Danish Fakhir Berwari, in which his son Abdulla learns
Produced by Lolav Media presents Broadcasting
Antonio Russo in co-production Corporation, about him through video footage shot when he was
Merenda with Ginestra Film, YLE – Yleisradio/ clearing mines for US forces after the fall of Saddam
Hogir Hirori SK Production Finnish Broadcasting Hussein. Armed with only a pair of kitchen shears,
Written by With support from Company Fakhir – a Kurdish father of eight – unearthed and
Hogir Hirori the Swedish Film
Directors of
disabled thousands of potentially lethal devices.
Institute SVT In Colour
Photography A production by [1.78:1] Nicknamed ‘Crazy Fakhir’ by the Americans, he ran
Shinwar Kamal Lolav Media in Subtitles out of luck in 2008 when he lost half his right leg to
Firas Bakrmani co-production an exploding device. He was invalided out of service
Erik Vallsten with Ginestra Film, Distributor and became increasingly depressed, yet when Islamic
Editor SK Production Dogwoof
Hogir Hirori In association State militants took Mosul in 2014, he acquired
Music with SVT a plastic prosthetic leg and volunteered with the
Mohammed Zaki With support from Peshmerga forces to resume his mine-clearing work.
Sound Design the Swedish Film While clearing residential homes mined by IS to
and Mix Institute, Nordisk
Jens Kihlén Film & TV Fond,
prevent their local owners returning, Fakhir and his
Film Stockholm/ two assistants were killed by an exploding mine. His
©Lolav Media AB Filmbasen devastated family remains proud of his courage.
The grey escape: Sheila Hancock

64 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

 Entebbe
USA/United Kingdom 2017
Director: José Padilha
Certificate 12A 106m 34s

articulated through straightforward dialogue Reviewed by Henry K. Miller

and the actors’ expressive performances. The The complexity of Middle Eastern politics in
characters’ impulses – Edie’s almost reckless the Cold War cannot be fitted into the frame of

REVIEWS
desire not to give up her autonomy, Jonny’s a ticking-clock thriller, and the moral drawn by
timid urge to stand up to his domineering José Padilha’s film, written by Gregory Burke,
girlfriend – are never hidden from the viewer. is fatuous. The three docudramas made in the
Though this approach does create a warm sense immediate aftermath of the Entebbe hostage
of proximity to the characters, it also forces the crisis of 1976 – one Israeli, two American – didn’t
film to rely entirely on their likeability, and on the aim to settle the big questions but could count
presumption that the twists and narrative turns on an audience that was reasonably familiar
of the story are entertaining in and of themselves. with the basics. The solution found by Olivier
Hancock and Guthrie are charismatic Assayas’s Carlos (2010) was to adumbrate
performers, finding their chemistry as the film geopolitical complexity without attempting to
progresses. Once Edie and Jonny both learn to trace its every connection. Entebbe seeks instead
look beyond the clichés of the angry old woman to simplify while spuriously trumpeting its own
and the lazy young man, their scenes together seriousness; and it fails as a thriller as well. The
become zestier and more interesting than climax of the film, the famous rescue by the IDF AK Cupid: Rosamund Pike
their initial rather tedious encounter. But their of more than 100 mostly Israeli civilians from
characters ultimately remain disappointingly German and Palestinian terrorists, is deliberately minster Yitzhak Rabin (Lior Ashkenazi) and his
underdeveloped, and both actors seem stifled botched because the film’s bovine politics lead it defence minister Shimon Peres (Eddie Marsan),
by the limitations of roles that lack nuance. As virtually to lament the rescue having happened. the latter entertainingly played as an arch-
the story reaches its predictable conclusion, Like its 1970s predecessors, Entebbe follows schemer. In this version of events, Rabin favours
their supposedly big emotional scenes fail the story from the hijacking of the Air France capitulation, while Peres pushes for a commando
to evoke more than basic sympathy. airbus between Tel Aviv and Paris to the bloody raid; indeed, Rabin’s opposition to the mission
Away from the narrative’s logical progress, denouement at Entebbe airport; what’s new is so strong that it is impossible to understand
a few suspended moments in slow motion – is the focus on the Germans. The narrative is his eventual change of heart. The debate never
showing the play of light between leaves, or the punctuated by flashbacks showing Wilfred goes anywhere, and the drama is so rigged that
calm that comes over Edie’s face – hint at a more ‘Boni’ Bose (Daniel Brühl) and Brigitte Kuhlmann no one even advances the standard argument
aesthetically adventurous film. It isn’t hard to (Rosamund Pike) – minor characters in Carlos that giving in to the terrorists would lead to
imagine a bolder, perhaps even magical-realist – debating whether two Germans taking further outrages. What is most extraordinary is
interpretation of this material. As it is, however, hostages and threatening to kill a planeload the film’s conflation of making a deal with the
the film remains both too light and too muted to of Jews sends quite the right message to the terrorists with the general idea of negotiation
do justice to the bigger themes toyed with at the world. This goes on for a considerable period with ‘the Palestinians’ (and with Israel’s regional
beginning – the sense of having wasted one’s life, of time, continuing throughout the operation, antagonists – though it is beyond this film to
the limitations of age – but too serious-minded to and the vile implication is that their actions make the distinction). In reality, the hijacking was
make Edie’s resilient spirit truly contagious. would be easy to justify if only they were, say, carried out by a splinter group from the Popular
Dutch and not German. Boni is presented as Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and was
Credits and Synopsis practically heroic for not following through not officially sanctioned by the PLO executive.
on his threat to machine-gun the hostages, Rabin and Peres’s well-documented differences
and the pair of them are given mournful were handled with more sophistication in both
Produced by ©Cape Wrath café owner
Mark Stothert Films Ltd Rachael Keiller death-shots not accorded to their victims. of the American TV movies that came out in
Screenplay Production hotel receptionist The film’s other main conflict is a crude 1976-77, one with Anthony Hopkins as Rabin,
Elizabeth O’Halloran Company Daniela Bräuer
Story Cape Wrath Films German hiker dove-versus-hawk affair between Israeli prime the other with Peter Finch in his last role.
Edward Lynden-Bell presents a Simon Calum Macrae
Director of Hunter film bothy man
Photography Tori Butler Hart Credits and Synopsis
August Jakobsson doctor
Edited by Cast
Olly Stothert Sheila Hancock Dolby Atmos Produced by Kave Quinn Production Cast Angel Bonanni In Colour
Production Edie In Colour Tim Bevan Music Companies Rosamund Pike Yoni Netanyahu [2.35:1]
Designer Kevin Guthrie [2.35:1] Eric Fellner Rodrigo Amarante Participant Media Brigitte Kuhlmann Nonso Anozie
Chris Richmond Jonny Kate Solomon Sound Designer/ presents a Working Daniel Brühl President Idi Amin Distributor
Music Composed Wendy Morgan Distributor Michelle Wright Supervising Title Films production Wilfred Böse, ‘Boni’ Juan Pablo Raba E1 Films
and Conducted by/ Nancy Arrow Films Ron Halpern Sound Editor Executive Producers Eddie Marsan Juan Pablo
Orchestration/ Amy Manson Screenplay Glenn Freemantle Jeff Skoll Shimon Peres Omar Berdouni US theatrical title
Piano Fiona Gregory Burke Costume Designer Jonathan King Lior Ashkenazi Faiz Jeber 7 Days in Entebbe
Debbie Wiseman Paul Brannigan Director of Bina Daigeler Olivier Courson Yitzhak Rabin, Mark Ivanir
Sound Designer McLaughlin Photography Stunt Co-ordinator Jean-Claude Darmon Prime Minister General Motta Gur
Sebastian Morsch Donald Pelmear Lula Carvalho Paul Herbert Angela Morrison Denis Menochet Peter Sullivan
Costume Designer George Editor Liza Chasin Jacques Lemoine Amos Eiran
Georgina Napier Christopher Dunne Daniel Rezende ©Storyteller Jo Burn Ben Schnetzer
Production Designer Distribution Co., LLC Zeev Hirsch Dolby Digital
UK, present day. In the wake of her husband’s death,
83-year-old Edie is about to move into a retirement Athens, 1976. Two German and two Palestinian terrorists Defense Forces try to dissuade Peres from this perilous
home, at the insistence of her daughter. But while hijack an Air France passenger jet en route from Tel Aviv, course of action, but he persists. Meanwhile, in Entebbe,
packing, Edie finds an old postcard from her father, demanding that Israel release more than 50 Palestinian Wilfred, sidelined by the Palestinians, begins to entertain
with a picture of a Scottish mountain they had prisoners in return for the mostly Israeli hostages. After doubts. Brigitte, however, sides with the Palestinians
promised to climb together one day but never did. refuelling at Benghazi, they fly on to Entebbe, Uganda, when they divide the passengers into Jews and non-Jews.
Edie decides to travel to Scotland to complete the where their host is Idi Amin. In flashback, the two Not long before the killing of the hostages is about to
climb. There, she meets Jonny, a young man drifting Germans, Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann, are shown begin, Rabin, under pressure of public opinion, announces
through life without the confidence to speak his mind planning the mission, first in Frankfurt, then in Yemen, that he will negotiate, and the deadline is postponed. The
to his girlfriend and family. Although Jonny and Edie and debating its ethics with Kuhlmann’s boyfriend. IDF has in the interim devised and rehearsed a rescue
initially struggle with their generational differences, In Israel, the cabinet is split, with the prime minister plan, and a commando unit sets off for Uganda in four
they eventually find comfort in each other’s company. Yitzhak Rabin favouring negotiation with the terrorists Hercules aircraft; the mission is approved by the cabinet
With Jonny’s guidance, Edie prepares for the climb, – which would mark a significant reversal of Israel’s only once the planes are airborne. On arrival at Entebbe,
then decides to do it alone. Although she needs his position – and his defence minister Shimon Peres the IDF troops kill the terrorists and Ugandan guards,
help near the end, she does make it to the top. favouring a rescue mission. Rabin’s allies in the Israel and rescue almost all the hostages, with minimal losses.

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 65

 Filmworker How to Talk to Girls at Parties
USA 2018 United Kingdom/USA 2016
Director: Tony Zierra Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Certificate 15 102m 39s

Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton Reviewed by Pamela Hutchinson

In its final lap, Tony Zierra’s documentary “Do more punk to me,” may have been an
Filmworker positions itself as a love letter to all irresistible come-on to many teenage boys in the
REVIEWS

the unsung, workaday, below-the-line talent who
make every film possible, but the better part of the
movie is dedicated to making the case – not much
of a stretch, as it happens – that its subject is every
bit as much an outlier as the man he worked for.
That subject is Leon Vitali, once a scruffy, sulky
young actor with blond curls and bee-stung
lips. He achieved a fair bit of notoriety on the
back of his television appearances in the early
1970s, but his claim to a place in film history
came with his role as the brooding, brattish Lord
Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 adaptation
of Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon. From that point
on, Vitali ate, breathed and slept (or didn’t sleep)
all things Kubrick, working for the director as
an all-purpose factotum and treasured assistant,
a relationship that began with pre-production
on The Shining (1980) and went on well beyond
Kubrick’s death, as Vitali continued to fight the
good fight for his mentor in the telecine room.
Part of Zierra’s reasoning for singling out
Vitali – the idea that he turned away from
untold fame and fortune and surrendered his
ambitions to serve those of the maestro, Kubrick
– feels slightly exaggerated. Vitali seems to
have been largely employed in Europudding
productions after Barry Lyndon, and it is entirely
possible that his work would have dried up as
his hairline receded. It is possible, too, that the
stress of working under Kubrick, infamous
perfectionist and hard taskmaster, may have
speeded up the ageing process considerably.
Vitali, now a wiry sixtysomething with the air
of a tour-tested, seen-it-all roadie, describes a
punishing schedule of seven-day weeks and
occasional 36-hour marathon print-checking
shifts – a workload that he was all too willing
to take on because Kubrick’s own devotion to
his films was no less fanatical. (Vitali’s adult
children also give testimony here, and seem not
overly bitter at whatever neglect they faced.)
Vitali is an engaging enough subject, but
the main draw for most viewers will be the
access he provides to Kubrick’s process, and
there are some gems here, including much
Servant and master: Leon Vitali, Stanley Kubrick
material on the casting of The Shining and Full
Metal Jacket (1987), in which Vitali was closely
involved. Ample archival material, including
set photos, memoranda and audition videos,
is deftly integrated, while irksome illustrative
animated interstitials are kept to a reasonable
minimum, and Filmworker altogether makes
a creditable if somewhat roughly assembled
addition to the Kubrickiana industry.
For many of the film-school-minted ‘movie
brat’ directors of the 1960s and 1970s, the idea
of mastery was inextricable from the rotund
figure of Alfred Hitchcock. Today, as the movies
struggle to retain cultural pre-eminence, it is
Kubrick, with his ability to make a monumental
event of each film, who provides the guiding
light, Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas
Anderson being only two noteworthy disciples.
But while many filmmakers seem to want
to be Stanley Kubrick, Filmworker indicates
the terrible cost of maintaining Kubrick-like
control – on the filmmaker himself, implicitly,
but also on those who believed in him most.
late 1970s, but when alien Zan (Elle Fanning) says
it to earthling Enn (Alex Sharp), it’s merely an
invitation to take the scissors to her rubber frock.
Virginal, nerdy zine-writer Enn could never be as
punk as space-travelling rebel Zan already is, but
he will spend a lot of her time on Earth extolling
his tape collection and condemning “selling out”.
How to Talk to Girls at Parties is a loose adaptation,
indeed a wild expansion, of Neil Gaiman’s
bittersweet short story of the same name. By
adding more plot, John Cameron Mitchell’s camp
movie has somehow given the story less meaning.
While many scenes in this hollow film fall flat,
it would be churlish to deny that it has charm,
some witty lines (“I used to be in Despair, but now
I’m in another band”) and outré quirky details. As
such it may at least be destined for cult status.
It’s 1977 (the set dressing relentlessly tells
us) and punk obsessive Enn meets his puckish
paramour at a bizarre party that his more
confident pal Vic has smooth-talked their way
into. Zan is part of a delegation of alien colonies
from somewhere undefined in outer space.
London is shut for the Queen’s jubilee, which
cancels the ETs’ tour sights, including “the prime
minister’s private pleasuredome”, so they hole
up instead in an abandoned house in Croydon,
playing ethereal music and engaging in what
look like gymnastic art pranks. After falling for
Enn, Zan decides to spend her 48 hours on Earth
with him, snogging, pogoing and chomping
tomatoes (enhanced by gross foley excess) as she
adapts to her human body. Zan knows, and Enn
will intuit, that the end of her visit will coincide
with a grotesque and lethal ritual. Until then, Zan
wants to embrace the joys of a drizzly weekend
in Croydon. Yes, she’s a Manic Pixie Dream Alien,
here to provide Enn with perspective, inspiration
and “incomplete sexual activity”. It’s a shame that
Fanning is so good here, passionate and quizzical,
as her character is such a tired cliché; Sharp, too,
makes his character appealing, even layered.
Gaiman’s short story ends even before the party
does, and so the rest of the film feels untethered.
It’s a free-for-all of kinky sci-fi rock ’n’ roll fun

Credits and Synopsis

Produced by dell’Ispettore Cliff?/ Lolita (1961) A documentary about long-time Stanley Kubrick
Elizabeth Yoffe Super Bitch (1973) collaborator Leon Vitali. First seen as a rising star in
Camera Ziggy Stardust and In Colour
Tony Zierra the Spiders from [1.78:1] English television in the early 1970s, Vitali wins the
Editor Mars (1982) coveted role of Lord Bullingdon in Kubrick’s 1975
Tony Zierra The Rolling Distributor adaptation of ‘Barry Lyndon’. Although this high-profile
Original Music Stones’ Rock’n’roll Dogwoof part brings many acting opportunities for Vitali, he sets
Luke Jennings Circus (1996)
David Ben Shannon Let It Be (1970)
himself to learning about the moviemaking process.
Sound Mix Catholics A Fable of Kubrick invites Vitali to join him on ‘The Shining’,
Chris Jenkins the Future (1973) working at first on casting, and then on all aspects
Sal Ojeda Barry Lyndon (1975) of the film. Vitali becomes Kubrick’s right-hand man.
Victor Frankenstein Friends, family and Vitali himself discuss the many
©TrueStudioMedia (1977)
Production The Killing (1956) aspects of his work. These include discovering and
Company Paths of Glory (1957) preparing R. Lee Ermey for his part in 1987’s ‘Full
TrueStudioMedia The Shining (1980) Metal Jacket’; the scrupulous checking of every print
A film by Tony Zierra Full Metal Jacket of a Kubrick release; and playing the role of orgy
Film Extracts (1987)
2001: A Space Dr. Strangelove or:
overseer Red Cloak on the set of 1999’s ‘Eyes Wide
Odyssey (1968) How I Learned to Stop Shut’. Also touched on are Vitali’s bleak childhood and
A Clockwork Worrying and Love his addiction to overwork, which was matched only
Orange (1971) the Bomb (1963) by Kubrick’s own. We hear too about the role Vitali
Si puo essere Eyes Wide Shut has played in securing Kubrick’s legacy by faithfully
più bastardi (1999)
overseeing restorations of the master’s work.
Smells like teen spirit: Alex Sharp, Elle Fanning

66 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

 Ismael’s Ghosts
France 2017
Director: Arnaud Desplechin

’n’ games, featuring, divinely, Nicole Kidman Review by Ginette Vincendeau (Louis Garrel), the hero of the film-within-the-
as jaded punk impresario Boadicea, wearing an Followers of Arnaud film, bears the family name of the Amalric
ice-white wig and jabbering in a chewy cockney See Feature Desplechin’s work will be on character in My Sex Life, while here he is also

REVIEWS
accent, defining punk as “smash the oppressor, on page 44 familiar territory with Ismael’s Ismaël’s brother. The labyrinthine narrative
tell the truth, be an original, blah blah blah.” Ghosts. Here are the cinematic (as signalled by the name Dédalus) in this long
Matt Lucas and Ruth Wilson stomp around references, the meandering (two hours and 14 minutes) ‘director’s cut’ is
amusingly as loopy alien elders, the latter being narrative, the return to the family home in the further fragmented by flashbacks explaining
especially good fun after a few chugs of vodka. northern French town of Roubaix, and the actor how Ismaël met Sylvia, the film veering from
This curiously paced film races to get going Mathieu Amalric as the director’s alter ego – as faux spy movie to melodrama to a celebration of
and then crawls to its overblown conclusion, seen in My Sex Life… or How I Got into an Argument the auteur’s heroic struggle to express himself.
including a coda that cements the tale in (1996), Kings and Queen (2004), A Christmas Such modernist complexity does not apply
modern geek culture. In truth, while this Tale (2008) and My Golden Days (2015). In the to the female characters, whose delineation
movie celebrates its own eccentricity, it’s far tradition of New Wave cinema, Desplechin relies on old-fashioned stereotypes. Carlotta
more successful on Earth than in space. The keeps reworking dual autobiographical and is the essence of mysterious femininity, gone
scene at a tiny punk gig has more tactility and filmic raw material to reflect on (male) artistic without reason, back without explanation,
excitement than anything else here, and Frank creation. As in My Sex Life, this is filtered through unpredictable and dangerous but stunningly
G. DeMarco’s warm and grubby cinematography a man seemingly irresistible to women: Ismaël beautiful – it is, after all, Marion Cotillard whose
puts the plastic FX to shame. Mitchell’s previous (Amalric), a writer and director, lives with Sylvia naked body we are treated to in a somewhat
success with Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) (Charlotte Gainsbourg) but is still obsessed with gratuitous shot; at another point, reinforcing
haunts this hodge-podge – its emphasis on his ex-wife Carlotta (Marion Cotillard), who the message about her unstable identity, she
oddballs and kooky spectacle means that it vanished 20 years ago and suddenly reappears. dances, deliberately awkwardly, to Bob Dylan’s
would be far more enjoyable as a musical. If the Biblical connotations of Ismaël’s name ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’. Sylvia, by contrast, is the
are neither explained nor noticeably relevant, rational woman, a scientist with a serious job,
Credits and Synopsis Jewishness, film and literary allusions are though this proves completely irrelevant, the
intertwined throughout. Carlotta’s surname, narrative insisting on her role as surrogate
Bloom, recalls Joyce’s Ulysses, and her father Henri mother to her handicapped brother. As played
Produced by Delish Films, Cross Nicole Kidman
Howard Gertler City Films and Queen Boadicea is a filmmaker whose work is celebrated at the Tel by Gainsbourg, she cries and smiles a lot while
Iain Canning Hanway Films a AJ Lewis Aviv festival – a reference to Claude Lanzmann, talking extremely quietly, the actor’s trademark.
Emile Sherman See-Saw Films/Little Vic
John Cameron Punk production Ethan Lawrence one of Desplechin’s mentors. Henri is played However different on the surface, both women
Mitchell See-Saw Films is John by the veteran Hungarian actor László Szabó, are united in their irrepressible desire to jump
Screenplay supported by the Edward
Philippa Goslett BFI’s Film Fund Petherbridge
regularly used by Desplechin and a favourite into bed, and have a child, with Ismaël.
John Cameron Delish Films PT First with New Wave filmmakers. Carlotta, in turn, Amalric gives a characteristically flamboyant
Mitchell (HTTTG) Limited Joanna Scanlan
Based on the short has been supported Marion, Enn’s Mum
is an obvious reference to Hitchcock’s Vertigo performance as the permanently unshaven,
story by Neil Gaiman by the Yorkshire Tom Brooke (1958), with her name, her uncanny reappearance tramp-like Ismaël, carrying the story even
Director of Content Fund PT Waldo and her large portrait in Ismaël’s apartment. at its most preposterous – for instance,
Photography Executive Producer Martin Tomlinson
Frank G. DeMarco Neil Gaiman Slap Meanwhile, confusingly, scenes from hallucinating in Roubaix while
Editor David Kosse Ismaël’s current movie open the ‘researching’ the history of perspective
Brian A. Kates Rose Garnett In Colour
Production Hugo Heppell film and recur at various intervals, in western art. The sequence includes
Designer Charles Auty Distributor its obscure spy plot gesturing an excellent cameo by Hippolyte
Helen Scott Thorsten Studiocanal Limited
Score Schumacher
towards Desplechin’s earlier Girardot as his put-upon producer.
Nico Muhly Michael J. Werner work in a complicated game In the end, then, two things save
Matmos Winnie Lau
Production Peter Fornstam
of trompe l’oeil: Ivan Dédalus Ismael’s Ghosts from descending
Sound Mixer Josie Ho into pretentious chaos: its cast
William Whale Marion Cotillard, Mathieu Amalric and, occasionally, its humour.
Costume Designer
Sandy Powell Cast
Elle Fanning Credits and Synopsis
©Colony Films Zan
Limited Alex Sharp
Production Henry, ‘Enn’
Companies Ruth Wilson Screenplay/ Nicolas Cantin With the participation 11, Soficinéma 13, Sylvia Bruno Todeschini
Film4 and Screen PT Stella Dialogue Sylvain Malbrant of Canal +, Ciné +, Cinéventure 2, Louis Garrel Tajikistani
Yorkshire present Matt Lucas Arnaud Desplechin Stéphane Thiébaut France Télévisions Cofinova 13, Indéfilms Ivan Dédalus security chief
in association with PT Wain Julie Peyr Costumes With the support 5, Palatine Etoile 14 Alba Rohrwacher
Léa Mysius Nathalie Raoul of Centre National A film by Arnaud Arielle/Faunia In Colour
Director of du Cinéma et de Desplechin Laszlo Szabo [2.35:1]
Croydon, 1977. Teenagers Enn, Vic and John talk Photography ©Why Not l’Image Animée, la Executive Producer Bloom Subtitles
their way into a party at a large house. The boys Irina Lubtchansky Productions, Région Île-de-France Oury Milshtein Hippolyte Girardot
are slow to realise that the hosts are aliens. Enn Editing France 2 Cinéma in partnership Zwy Distributor
Laurence Briaud Production with the CNC, and Jacques Nolot Arrow Films
strikes up a rapport with a rebellious female alien Art Direction Companies Pictanovo supported Cast Claverie
named Zan. Having requested dispensation from Toma Baqueni Why Not Productions by la Région Mathieu Amalric Catherine Mouchet French theatrical title
her ‘parent-teacher’, Zan goes home with Enn. The Music Composed presents a co- Hauts-de-France Ismaël intensive care doctor Les Fantômes
next day they visit Boadicea, a punk impresario. Zan and Orchestrated production of Why and in partnership Marion Cotillard Samir Guesmi d’Ismaël
by/Piano-harp Not Productions, with the CNC Carlotta Bloom doctor
and Enn improvise a duet, with lyrics describing
Grégoire Hetzel France 2 Cinéma, Le In association Charlotte Mélodie Richard
the ‘eating ritual’ that the aliens will perform at the Sound Pacte, Wild Bunch with Cinémage Gainsbourg actress
end of their visit. Some of the aliens follow Zan to
the gig, where they start an orgy. Zan discovers that
she is pregnant. Later that night, Enn dreams about Paris, present day. At the Foreign Office, men discuss seaside house, Carlotta reappears, provoking Sylvia to
the eating ritual, in which the parents devour their the disappearance of their colleague Ivan Dédalus, leave. Ismaël sleeps with Carlotta but then sends her
young. Next day, Enn and a group of punks invade wondering if he is a spy. These are scenes from a film away. He accompanies Carlotta’s father Henri to the Tel
the aliens’ house to confront them and rescue Zan. made about his brother by Ismaël, a writer and director Aviv film festival, where the latter’s work is celebrated.
She is given the casting vote on whether to abolish living in Paris (extracts from Ismaël’s film are inserted On his return, Ismaël abandons his own film and hides in
the eating ritual – but only once she has given birth at various points in the narrative). Ismaël still mourns his family house in northern France. Ismaël’s producer
back home. In the early hours, the aliens leave Earth. the disappearance of his wife Carlotta, who vanished Zwy forcibly takes him back to Paris to complete the
In 1992, Enn is signing copies of the comic book he 20 years earlier and is believed dead. He is now happily film. Carlotta visits her father, who falls ill from the
has written about Zan, when their children arrive and living with Sylvia, an astronomer, though he seems shock. When he dies, she vanishes again; Ismaël and
announce that they want to form a band on Earth. unable to finish his current film. While they are at their Sylvia are happily reunited, and she is expecting a child.

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 67

 Lean on Pete
United Kingdom 2017
Director: Andrew Haigh
Certificate 15 121m 35s

Reviewed by Philip Kemp

Spoiler alert: this review reveals a plot twist
With Lean on Pete, his fourth feature, British
REVIEWS

director Andrew Haigh makes his transatlantic

big-screen debut – though he has already
established his credentials Stateside as exec
producer, co-director and co-writer of the HBO
series Looking (2014-15), centring around three
gay guys living in San Francisco (in some quarters
pigeonholed as the gay cousin of Lena Dunham’s
Girls). In this, as in his three UK features to date,
Haigh showed a knack for low-key observational
studies of relationships where glances count for as
much as words, and where what’s not said often
conveys as much as what is. In 45 Years (2015),
a long-married couple (Charlotte Rampling and
Tom Courtenay) discover cracks in their marriage
dating back decades and throwing its future into
doubt; but nobody shouts or turns histrionic.
And the two gay guys in Weekend (2011) who
hook up for what they expect to be a transient
one- or two-night stand, only to find it developing
despite themselves into something deeper,
explore their emotional complexities in scenes
all the more effective for being understated. The horse and his boy: Charlie Plummer
Both these – and Haigh’s feature debut, the
semi-documentary Greek Pete (2009), about a The plotting (Haigh’s script is adapted from embrace and open up emotionally, succumbing
London rent boy – are essentially circumscribed Willy Vlautin’s 2010 novel) occasionally feels to grief – for Pete, it seems, as much as for his dad.
domestic dramas. Lean on Pete allows him to lazy: on several occasions when Charley hits The film ends as it began, with Charley out
widen his horizons – literally so, as we get no trouble, a cop or doctor will tell him “Just wait for an early-morning run, though in a different
lack of long-shot vistas of the American Far right there,” then obligingly turn his back while town. The sense of closure is satisfyingly earned.
West, perhaps a few too many. (Like a lot of the lad hightails it into the night. But elsewhere For all its sometimes over-episodic structure
expats, Haigh seems entranced by the sheer the predictable narrative clichés are avoided. – a sequence where Charley encounters two
vastness of the US.) But here again the central It looks at first as if Lynn, the friendly young disaffected Iraq vets could have been omitted
relationship remains quiet and intimate, though woman Ray brings home for the night and who without much loss – Haigh has crafted a
it’s not between two guys or a hetero couple, happily cooks breakfast for both father and son, quietly affecting coming-of-age journey tale
but between a teenage boy and a horse. will become the mother-figure that Charley sustained by a central performance that never
Both, when they set out on their cross-country is evidently lacking, or failing her, Bonnie; but feels forced or contrived. And as a bittersweet,
trek, are damaged. The racehorse, the titular it doesn’t happen in either case. It’s not until felt study in human-animal relations,
Lean on Pete, has developed a weakness in his he finally tracks down Ray’s sister in Laramie comparison with Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy
back legs that makes him worthless to his owner that the youngster can collapse into a motherly and Lucy (2008) doesn’t seem out of place.
Del (Steve Buscemi at his most cantankerous).
“Del runs his horses into the ground,” jockey Credits and Synopsis
Bonnie (Chloë Sevigny) tells Charley, and he
knows that the animal will be sent to Mexico
Produced by Supervising a production from David Kosse Mike Del Montgomery
as horsemeat. For his part, Charley has seen Tristan Goligher Sound Editor The Bureau Vincent Gadelle Lewis Pullman Amy Seimetz
his dad Ray (Travis Fimmel), his relationship Written by Joakim Sundström A film by Andrew Darren Demetre Dallas Lynn
Andrew Haigh Costume Design Haigh Film Extracts Bob Olin
with his son affectionate if cheerfully casual, Based on the novel Julie Carnahan Developed with the Ice Castles (1978) Mr Kendall In Colour
savagely attacked in their home by a jealous by Willy Vlautin support of Film4, Alison Elliott [1.85:1]
Director of ©The Bureau The Bureau Aunt Margy
husband. Ray dies in hospital – and it’s soon Photography Film Company Made with the Cast Rachael Perrell Distributor
after this that Charley and Pete take off on Magnus Jønck Limited, Channel support of the Charlie Plummer Foskett Curzon Artificial Eye
Edited by Four Television BFI’s Film Fund Charley Thompson Martha
their odyssey with Del’s purloined truck. Jonathan Alberts Corporation and The Executive Producers Chloë Sevigny Kurt Conroyd
When the truck breaks down, the pair Production Design British Film Institute Lizzie Francke Bonnie nurse
continue on foot, their journey taking them Ryan Warren Smith Production Ben Roberts Steve Zahn Travis Fimmel
Original Score Companies Daniel Battsek Silver Ray Thompson
eastward across Oregon and Idaho into Wyoming, James Edward Barker Film4 & BFI present Sam Lavender Justin Rain Steve Buscemi
where Charley hopes to find his aunt Margy. Their
Portland, Oregon, present day. Fifteen-year-old horsemeat, Charley drives off with Pete in Del’s truck.
scenes together as they walk are the film’s most Charley lives with his easy-going, lackadaisical father Out of cash, Charley steals food and fuel. He’s
gently intimate, Charley telling Pete about his Ray, who moves around working in warehouses across caught, but a sympathetic waitress lets him go.
childhood friends and memories, while at night the northwest. One evening, Ray brings work colleague The truck breaks down. Charley walks across
they’re serenaded by distant cows and coyotes Lynn home for the night. The next morning, out for a country with Pete, hoping to reach Rock Springs,
as they settle down under the stars; the sense of run, Charley passes the Portland Meadows racetrack. Wyoming, where he believes his aunt Margy lives.
loss when Pete is hit by a car on the highway and Wandering in he meets horse owner Del, who gives Pete, spooked by passing motorbikes, runs across a
him work mucking out and looking after the horses. road, is knocked down and killed. In the next town,
dies, with Charley standing horror-struck over Charley takes to one of them, Lean on Pete. One night, Charley meets a drunk, Silver, who invites him to stay
him, is intense. As Charley, the gangling Charlie Lynn’s estranged husband breaks in and attacks Ray, in the trailer he shares with his girlfriend Martha.
Plummer (on screen virtually throughout) gives putting him in hospital. Unwilling to stay in the house, Charley learns that Margy has moved to Laramie. He
an appealingly vulnerable performance, his Charley moves into the stables. Bonnie, one of Del’s earns some money working for house decorators;
open gaze gradually darkening as he encounters jockeys, wins a race on Pete. At the hospital, Charley that night, Silver attacks him and takes the cash.
is told that Ray has died. With a different jockey, Pete Finding a tyre iron, Charley knocks Silver down and
cruelty and violence – and finally pushed into loses a race; Del announces he’s selling him. Knowing gets his money back. He boards a bus to Laramie
furious retaliation by Steve Zahn’s down-and- that this means the horse will be sent to Mexico for and is reunited with Margy, who takes him in.
out Silver, who turns vicious when drunk.

68 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

The Leisure Seeker
Italy/France/USA 2017
Director: Paolo Virzì
Certificate 15 112m 0s
Reviewed by Violet Lucca
Among the sizeable number of films about
the elderly that offer little to no insight into
ageing, The Leisure Seeker takes what would
be a wonderful real-life experience – a couple
taking one last road trip together – and turns it
into cloying drudgery. Retired English literature
teacher John Spencer (Donald Sutherland) has
some sort of severe, intermittent memory loss;
his chatty Southern wife Ella (Helen Mirren)
clearly has cancer, but she never complains
about her disease – only John’s. Her exasperation
is meant to be plaintive, though is repeated so
many times in such plain terms (“I’m sick and
tired of having to remember everything for you!”)
that it almost immediately feels insensitive
rather than earned and loving grouchiness.
But, then, unkindness is in the air: Ella and
John’s journey from Wellesley, Massachusetts, to
Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West begins
in August 2016, and a Trump speech drowns
out Carole King’s melodic ‘It’s Too Late’ during
the opening credits. Despite being a lifelong
Democrat who volunteered for Dukakis in 1988,
John later potters into a pro-Trump parade, where
the USA Freedom Kids’ song ‘Freedom’s Call’
is blasting, and starts chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
Whether this is meant to be a commentary on
the mental facilities of Trump supporters, a
‘funny bit’ involving an extremely vulnerable
old man who’s wandered away from his carer,
simply noting how damn catchy “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
is or some combination of these remains unclear.
Director Paolo Virzì and his three co-screenwriters
struggle to get the most out of their setting and its
historic moment, despite deploying some piquant
American signifiers aside from Trump and
Hemingway, such as a gas station run by Syrian
immigrants (whom Ella awkwardly gabs with)
and a black waitress who did her thesis on The
Old Man and the Sea (which suggests that, despite
having an advanced degree, she cannot get work
elsewhere or is paying off loans with a second job).
Such artful, indirect sociological commentary
is entirely absent from John and Ella’s 50-year
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Editor Companies
Fabrizio Donvito Jacopo Quadri Bac Films
Marco Cohen Production Designer Distribution, Indiana
Bendetto Habib Richard A. Wright Production and Rai
Producer Music Composed Cinema present in
Marty Eli Schwartz and Produced by collaboration with
Screenplay Carlo Virzì Motorino Amaranto
Stephen Amidon Sound Mixer In association with 3
Francesca Archibugi Matthew Nicolay Marys Entertainment
Francesco Piccolo Costume Designer Srl, Banca Monte
Paolo Virzì Massimo Cantini dei Paschi di Siena
Based upon the book Parrini Spa, Groupama
by Michael Zadoorian Assicurazioni Spa
Director of ©Indiana in accordance with
Photography Production S.P.A. Italian Tax Credit Law
Luca Bigazzi Production A cultural interest film
Wellesley, Massachusetts, 2016. Retired teacher John
Spencer and his wife Ella drive their 1975 Winnebago
RV through town. Their son Will is horrified to discover
that they have left their home without telling him. John
and Ella are on their way to visit Ernest Hemingway’s
home in Key West, Florida. It will be their last road trip
together: John has memory loss and Ella has cancer.
John repeatedly wanders off while they are at RV
campsites or during pit stops. When they pull over
because of a flat tyre, they are held up by two men with
a knife, but Ella scares the would-be robbers away with
Mansfield 66/67
USA/United Kingdom 2017
Directors: P. David Ebersole, Todd Hughes
Reviewed by Erika Balsom
To encounter Jayne Mansfield once is to know
forever that femininity is a masquerade, a ruse.
REVIEWS
Whatever the actress’s corporeal endowments,
her coiffed platinum hair, glossily painted
lips, childish squeal and strategic wardrobe
malfunctions operated at such a high level
of artifice that there can be no doubt: there
is nothing natural about being a woman. To
ascend to the peak of heterosexual desirability,
a carefully calibrated staging is required – a
form of drag, even. Mansfield 66/67 takes up this
liberating prospect, exploring its possibilities of
Senior moment: Sutherland, Mirren provocation and subversion in a manner that
is enjoyably watchable, if at times uneven.
relationship, the history of which is doled out One can look at Mansfield and see nothing
through slideshows at various RV campsites. but a big-breasted airhead, a 1950s babe cut to
(Young people, presumably enchanted by this the measure of male desire, desperate to stay
mystical analogue technology, gather to look at relevant in the 1960s as she aged and the culture
their pictures.) Save for their horrible, untreatable changed, cycling through husbands, dying
illnesses, the only two complications in their tragically in a car crash in 1967 at the age of 34.
pure, enduring love are John’s intermittent But why do we insist on always framing our
jealousy of Ella’s first boyfriend Dan and John’s bombshells as sad and punished? Better to follow
affair with their neighbour Lillian, which the lead of Mansfield 66/67 and see Hollywood’s
Ella discovers when John mistakes her for the ‘smartest dumb blonde’ as a canny and campy
other woman (and then immediately forgets sex-positive icon, maybe even a high priestess
he has said it). Rather than dealing with these in the Church of Satan, for whom performance,
issues solicitously, Virzì shows Ella and John spectacle and self-fashioning were as much
behaving with violent childishness: John sticks matters of empowerment as exploitation.
a shotgun in Ella’s face and demands a detour The film largely adopts the standard
to meet her ex; Ella abandons John at a roadside conventions of the celebrity biography, tracing
rest home after hearing about his infidelity. the arc of the actor’s short career through
While they ultimately forgive and forget, the plentiful archival footage and talking heads.
emotional unevenness of people we are meant Yet Mansfield 66/67 refreshingly departs from
to admire for their enduring affection – but who the countless documentaries that celebrate
are ready to kill their spouse at the first sign of Hollywood history through an endless series of
being wronged – is jarring, to say the least. male testimonials to genius. It queers the genre,
Sutherland and Mirren have a cool, kind with (somewhat grating) dance sequences in
chemistry that never quite coheres because which men and women dress as Jayne, and there
of this uneven tone and the telegraphed is a knowing embrace of gossip. Just like gender,
crises. (Sutherland’s depiction of John’s celebrity comes down to surface appearances,
dramatically expedient mental fogging is not deep truths – so why not indulge rumour
cringeworthy.) It’s a film perhaps left to those and hearsay, playfully acknowledging them
who infantilise the elderly and think that as such? In this latter move, Mansfield 66/67
everything they do is cute – including dying. follows, albeit less libellously, in the tradition
of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, a once
banned compendium of the legendary lives of
stars and starlets that boasted Mansfield’s busty
with the contribution Daniel Campos Janel Moloney image on its cover. Anger himself appears in
of Italian Ministry of Pavoncelli Jane Spencer the film with a host of subcultural luminaries,
Cultural Heritage and Cobi Benatoff Dana Ivey
Activities and Tourism David Grumbach Lillian including Warhol superstar Mary Woronov,
- Film Department Mathieu Robinet Dick Gregory drag queen Peaches Christ, Playboy model Dolly
An Indiana Production Gilles Sousa Dan Coleman
with Rai Cinema Bryan Thomas
Read, filth auteur John Waters and Cheryl Dunye,
production In Colour director of the film-historical fabulation The
With assistance [2.35:1] Watermelon Woman (1996). Notably, all of the
from the Georgia Cast
Film, Music & Digital Helen Mirren Distributor many academics who weigh in are women.
Entertainment Office Ella Spencer Universal Pictures As its title suggests, the events of 1966 and
Executive Producers Donald Sutherland International
Alessandro John Spencer UK & Eire 1967 are of signal importance, particularly
Mascheroni Christian McKay Mansfield’s affiliation with Anton LaVey, the San
Dov Mamann Will Spencer
Francisco-based founder of the Church of Satan.
a shotgun. Ella wakes to find John pointing the gun at In what seems like an unlikely meeting of worlds,
her and demanding that she take him to see her first Mansfield visited LaVey and was photographed
boyfriend, Daniel Coleman. John is amused when Daniel at his Black House; some speculated they had a
fails to remember Ella. During another memory lapse,
sexual relationship, and some claimed LaVey put
John mistakes Ella for their neighbour Lillian, and reveals
that he had an affair with her. Ella angrily drops John off a curse on Mansfield’s lover that was ultimately
at an old people’s home. A few hours later, she decides to responsible for her death. He might also have
forgive him. They drive to Key West. While at a wedding been behind the mauling of her young son by
there, Ella faints and is taken to hospital. John ‘rescues’ a lion. Mansfield 66/67 makes no effort to parse
her and takes her back to the RV. Ella turns on the motor fact from fiction, just as it refrains from
and they die together of carbon-monoxide poisoning.
casting any verdict on the authenticity of
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 69
 Mary and the Witch’s Flower
Japan 2017
Director: Yonebayashi Hiromasa
Certificate U 102m 47s

LaVey’s occult powers. This is no cynical Reviewed by Kate Stables a sense of missed opportunities. While lush
exercise in proclaiming the impossibility Studio Ghibli obsessives, fretfully waiting for English landscapes, full of misty woods and
of truth, however. Mansfield 66/67 adopts a the now unretired Miyazaki Hayao’s newly flowery gardens, are lovingly detailed, there’s
REVIEWS

method appropriate to its subject: it is a film announced How Do You Live?, will find Studio little sense of the woodland being an atmospheric,
about performance, publicity and the pleasures Ponoc’s first feature soothingly familiar. Ex- liminal space for tween transformation. This
of reading media spectacle against the grain, Ghibli director Yonebayashi Hiromasa (Arrietty, shades-of-green rural idyll contrasts sharply
a film concerned not with Mansfield herself When Marnie Was There) has fashioned a warmly with the architectural airborne fantasy that is
but with what Richard Dyer has called the traditional, studiously Ghiblian tale of a young Endor College, a Hogwarts-from-hell blending
‘star text’, something that extends far beyond girl challenging the mutant-making plans of Victorian gothic with Brighton Pavilion domes
the biographical individual to encompass an evil headmistress of a school for witches. and supersized atriums resembling a ritzy
the discourses that circulate around her. With its feisty young broom-riding heroine, shopping mall. These locations are barely
For all its campy fun, the film takes Mansfield classic English source material (Mary Stewart’s explored, though, neither of them creating the
seriously and questions why society wouldn’t. The Little Broomstick) and the vivid fantasy imaginative, immersive world that Spirited
Of all the commentators, Waters best articulates landscapes of school-in-the-sky Endor College, Away and Howl’s Moving Castle conjured up.
the lens through which the film views Mansfield, the film gives off strong echoes of many Ghibli Sturdy, stubborn and oddly uninterested
speculating that she would have loved to die titles, especially Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) and in being Endor’s witch-prodigy, Mary is the
as she did, with “blood, guts, the headline on Spirited Away (2001). There’s even a shuddering film’s only rounded character, portrayed
the front page and the dead Chihuahua”. She suggestion of the slurpy demon worms of Princess with doughty, fear-filled intensity in the
was, he persuasively claims, no tragic figure, Mononoke (1997) in Madam Mumblechook’s English-dubbed version by Ruby Barnhill
no victim, but someone fully in on the joke. army of flying tar creatures. None of this (The BFG). Meanwhile, Kate Winslet’s shrill
should come as a great surprise – Yonebayashi Mumblechook and Jim Broadbent’s eccentric
Credits and Synopsis worked on Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving mutant-maker Dr Dee have a cookie-cutter feel.
Castle (2004), which also gets a little in-joke. The film is at its most interesting when it
Trouble is, it’s a bit overfamiliar. There is much peels away from the Ghibli template to do its
Produced by Bus Stop (1956) The Challenge
P. David Ebersole The Wayward (1959) to enjoy in the film’s straightforward storytelling own thing. For example, rather than benign
Todd Hughes Bus (1957) La Belle et la Bête/ and handsome, mostly hand-animated pastel enchantment, magic here is an unstable force
Larra Anderson Einer frisst den Beauty and the
Directors of anderen/Dog Beast (1946) visuals (450 animators worked on the film, using whose power attracts the warped. The screaming
Photography Eat Dog (1964) The Car (1977) animation software sensitively for the fantasy mutant animals that Dee creates provide the
UK: Sex Kittens Go to It Happened in
Larra Anderson College (1960) Athens (1961)
sequences). But the line between Ghibli homage film with its few authentic jolts of horror, and
US: Pulp Fiction (1994) Roar (1981) and pale imitation is a fine one here. One feels his laboratory transformation of Mary’s friend
John Tanzer Heimweh nach St. The Exorcist (1973)
Edited by Pauli/Homesick for Single Room
the lack of a stronger or more complex story, Peter suggests the ungovernable outcomes
P. David Ebersole St. Pauli (1963) Furnished (1967) such as When Marnie Was There’s shifting mix of of nuclear power, as in the 2011 Fukushima
Todd Hughes Female Trouble A Guide for the supernatural bonds and adolescent awakening. disaster. Magical blue flowers glow with
Production (1974) Married Man (1967)
Designer Gojira/Godzilla 3 Nuts in Search However, Yonebayashi’s admitted wish to radioactive intensity throughout the film, finally
Jane Morton King of the of a Bolt (1964) make a much more action-packed piece has swelling Peter into a sphere of all-consuming
Original Music Monsters! (1954) The Wild Wild
Robert Davis Bell Book and World of Jayne clearly been fulfilled. Tough little Mary is bounced blue gloop reminiscent of Akira’s white atomic
James Peter Moffatt Candle (1958) Mansfield (1968) by the sudden acquisition of magic flowers mass. There’s a sense that Yonebayashi wants
Sound Design L’amore primitivo/
Laura Taylor Primitive Love In Colour
into rocketing broomstick rides, whooshing Japanese youth to look beyond the traditional
(1964) [1.78:1] vertiginously up towering trees or into breakneck interest in the supernatural. So it’s Mary’s
©The Ebersole Promises,
Hughes Company Promises (1963) Distributor
chases, at fairground-ride velocity for the viewer. determination and tenacity that get the job
Production Faster, Pussycat! Peccadillo But once you’ve caught your breath there’s done, not her all-powerful blooms.
Companies Kill! Kill! (1966) Pictures Ltd
The Ebersole The Chelsea
Hughes Company, Girls (1966) Credits and Synopsis
The Northern Film Too Hot to
School - School of Handle (1960)
Film, Music & the Ride in the Director Director of Film partners Fukuoka Broadcasting Great-aunt Charlotte Japanese
Performing Arts, Whirlwind (1965) English-language Photography management: Nippon Executive Producers Louis Ashbourne theatrical title
Leeds Beckett Rosemary’s version: Fukushi Susumu Television Network, Kadoya Daisuke Serkis Meari to majo
University Baby (1968) Giles New Editing Studio Ponoc, Toho, English-language Peter no hana
Film Extracts The Black Cat (1934) Producers Kojima Toshihiko Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY version: Morwenna Banks
Illegal (1955) The Seventh Nishimura Yoshiaki Art Director Media Partners, Walt Will Clarke Miss Banks
Las Vegas Victim (1943) English-language Kubo Tomotaka Disney Japan, Lawson, Teresa Gallagher
Hillbillys (1966) Bedazzled (1967) version: Music Kadokawa, Khara, red-haired witch
The Girl Can’t Angeli bianchi... Geoffrey Wexler Muramatsu Takatsugu Yomiuri Telecasting, Voice Cast Rasmus Hardiker
Help It (1956) angeli neri/ Screenplay Sound Designer/ KEN ON, Amuse, English-language Zebedee
The Searchers Witchcraft Sakaguchi Riko Re-recording Mixer D.N.dreampartners, version: Rebecca Louise Kidd
(1956) ’70 (1969) Yonebayashi Kasamatsu Kouji Line, The Yomiuri Ruby Barnhill light fairy
Beyond the Valley Abby (1974) Hiromasa Supervising Shimbun, Sapporo Mary
of the Dolls (1970) The Devil’s Based on the novel Animator Television Kate Winslet Dolby Digital
Gentlemen Prefer Rain (1975) The Little Broomstick Inamura Takeshi Broadcasting, Madam In Colour
Blondes (1953) Invocation of by Mary Stewart Miyagi Television Mumblechook [1.85:1]
Will Success Spoil My Demon English-language ©M.F.P. Broadcasting, Jim Broadbent
Rock Hunter? (1957) Brother (1969) Screenplay Production Shizuoka Daiichi Dr Dee Distributor
Kiss Them for Lucifer Rising (1981) Adaptation Companies Television, Chukyo Ewen Bremner Altitude Film
Me (1957) Häxan (1922) David Freedman Mary and the Witch’s TV Broadcasting, Flanagan Distribution
Lynda Freedman Flower Film Partners Hiroshima Television, Lynda Baron
A biographical documentary on the life and career
of Jayne Mansfield, Hollywood actor and sex symbol.
Mansfield, active from her debut in ‘Illegal’ (1955), England, the 1970s. While staying with her great-aunt flower-powered witch in Dee’s mutation machine. Mary
is closely associated with her role in Frank Tashlin’s Charlotte, Mary finds some magic blue flowers. The learns that Charlotte stole the flowers decades ago to
‘The Girl Can’t Help It’ (1956) and notable for being flowers’ magic sends Mary and her broomstick flying thwart Madam Mumblechook. Mary enters the Endor lab,
the first major American actress to appear nude in a into the sky to Endor, a college for witches. Headmistress helped by the released animals. She has a broken broom
leading role in a Hollywood movie (1963’s ‘Promises, Madam Mumblechook and scientist Dr Dee hail her as and no magic left. Peter’s transformation unleashes
Promises’). ‘Mansfield 66/67’ is a queer take on an exceptional witch. Mary secretly absorbs a book of a blue sphere that sucks up all the magic in the lab.
the actress’s image and relation to publicity. In spells. To extort the blue flowers from Mary, Madam When Mary finds the spell book and releases Peter, it
particular, it unfolds her association with Church Mumblechook kidnaps her friend Peter. Mary releases causes a vast magic eruption that destroys the building.
of Satan founder Anton LaVey and his possible Peter along with a menagerie of mutant animals created Mary awakens in the ruins, and flies Peter home on her
connection to her death in a car crash in 1967. by Dr Dee. Peter is recaptured, to be made into a blue- mended broom, throwing the last blue flower away.

70 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

My Friend Dahmer New Town Utopia
USA 2017 United Kingdom 2017
Director: Marc Meyers Director: Christopher Ian Smith

Reviewed by Kate Stables Reviewed by Trevor Johnston

A serial-killer movie without killings, Marc Mid-century modernist British architecture
Meyers’s deft and engrossing account of continues to fascinate. All that concrete, all

‘Milwaukee Cannibal’ Jeffrey Dahmer’s teen
misery is sympathetic rather than sanguinary.
Apart from a mysteriously disembowelled dog,
it’s entirely free of the true-crime carnage of, say,
Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer (1989). Instead,
it’s a coming-of-age story about a profoundly
dysfunctional suburban teen spiralling
through high school and into madness.
A thoughtful adaptation of his schoolmate John
Backderf’s Robert Crumb-styled graphic novel,
rich with detail and regret, it deconstructs the
perfect storm of failures – by family, by friends,
in his school life – that let him slip. Working the
tick-box list of psychopathic symptoms Dahmer
displayed (animal harm, necrophiliac fantasies)
into a tense build-up, the film creates a resonant
character study. The slow-paced episodic structure
winds strands of a rancorous parental divorce,
mounting impulses and bullied schooldays into
a suffocating burden for Ross Lynch’s struggling
Dahmer. An obsession with a local jogger,
prompted by a rapt glimpse from a school bus,
becomes a weird, unrequited romance, as Dahmer
stalks his prey and risks a shaming confrontation.
Bearing witness to Dahmer’s isolated misery,
as well as to his strangeness, Meyers’s script
creates poignancy in the brief ‘court jester’
friendship that Dahmer gained with Backderf’s
nerds thanks to his facility for faking fits in
school. Among the note-perfect 1970s decor
and dialogue, the film is cleverly attuned to the
era’s casual high-school cruelty. Like the mirror
opposite of the joyously nostalgic Dazed and
Confused (1993), the film portrays alcohol, weed
dealers, friendships and the school prom as
variously numbing, life-threatening and debasing.
The members of the ‘Dahmer Fan Club’, led by
‘Derf’, can’t recognise their jokey promotion of
his ‘spazzing’ clowning as exploitation, until it
builds into a chilling pay-to-view freak-out in
the mall. With the camera glued to a spinning,
yelping, writhing Dahmer, numb with misery, the
sequence feels like clambering inside his head.
Dahmer chameleon: Ross Lynch
Otherwise, give or take the odd necrophiliac
fantasy, the tone is naturalistic, attuned to the
banality of evil, unlike the supra-real mocking
black comedy of notoriety in, say, I, Tonya (2017).
There’s the odd bone-dry foreshadowing line –
“We eat our mistakes in this family,” his mother
declares over a spoilt meal. Better still is Vice
President Walter Mondale, encountered on a
school trip, who insists, “You ought to pursue
that,” when told of Dahmer’s interest in biology.
As in Harvest (2010), Meyers’s earlier family-
crisis film, a fine ensemble cast make their mark
without theatricality. Anne Heche’s heedless
mother and Alex Wolff’s playful, increasingly
uneasy ‘Derf’ are particularly good. But the dazed,
obsessive Lynch, moving up from Disney Channel,
is absolutely excellent, his stiff movements,
dull eyes and jerking, moaning shtick giving his
inner pain an eloquent physicality. He is key to
the film’s compassion, with the subtle sound
design giving a barely perceptible buzz to signal
his dips into psychosis. There’s pity for Dahmer
here, but no excuses. When he lures Derf into
his house, there’s no Happiness-style rooting
for the assailant. A humane film, this takes its
responsibility as a true story seriously, without the
luridness or cheap jump scares of Ed Gein (2000).
Shot in Dahmer’s utterly suburban childhood
home, and cleaving tightly to Backderf’s wish to
bear witness, it’s an exquisite dissection of how
monsters are not only born, but also made.
REVIEWS
those geometric forms. A style that is vintage yet
somehow never quite time-locked, always looking
forward to a brave new future just out of reach.
Christopher Ian Smith’s feature-length portrait
of Basildon certainly delivers on that front,
capturing a succession of calm, still frames of
the housing estates, walkways and pedestrian
precincts marking out this purpose-built ‘New
Town’ in Essex, laid out post-WWII to provide
better living standards and full-time employment
for those stuck in the squalor of the polluted
inner city. Sometimes Smith has the camera track
through the residential areas’ interconnecting
passageways, as Greg Haines’s imposing score
plays serial solo piano chords, and the effect
is intriguingly ambivalent – the idealism that
brought this place into being still lingers in the
air, yet there’s also something slightly desolate
about the present mapped out in front of us.
Mixed feelings emerge, too, in the array of
witness testimonies the film collates from
various long-time local residents, their assembled
reflections providing a contrast to the extracts
from the ministerial speech announcing the
late-40s Labour government’s lofty ambitions
for the town. Actor Jim Broadbent does the
voiceover honours, bringing a touch of sceptical
hindsight to his slightly comic rendering of
Lewis Silkin MP’s sincere declaration that
Basildon would inspire “a new type of citizen – a
healthy, self-respecting, dignified person with
a sense of beauty, culture and civic pride”.
Still, at least some of that is actually borne
out by the filmed interviews with the residents,
who give the lie to any notion that Basildon is
peopled entirely by Tory-voting Essex geezers.
Indeed, these amiable, down-to-earth types
provide observations and intermittent poetic
performances that indicate a strong grassroots
current of countercultural creativity. There
are nostalgic memories of growing up

Credits and Synopsis

Produced by An Ibid Filmworks Dr Matthews Ohio, the 1970s. Isolated teen Jeffrey Dahmer is
Jody Girgenti and Aperture Harrison Holzer obsessed with dissecting dead animals. His parents’
Marc Meyers Entertainment Mike
Adam Goldworm production in Miles Robbins marriage is disintegrating. His mother Joyce, recently
Michael Merlob association Lloyd Figg returned from a mental hospital, grows increasingly
Milan Chakraborty with Novofam manic. His father tries to interest Jeffrey in ‘normal’
Written by Productions, Strange In Colour hobbies but loses interest. Jeffrey’s fake ‘fits’ at school
Marc Meyers Cavern, Attic Light [2.35:1]
Based on the book
make him the mascot of cartoonist John’s nerdy trio.
Films, Section
by Derf Backderf Perspective Distributor They perform pranks at school. On a school visit to
Director of A film by Marc Meyers Altitude Film Washington, Dahmer wangles a meeting with Vice
Photography Executive Producers Entertainment President Walter Mondale for his group. He fixates on
Daniel Katz Mike Novogratz male jogger Dr Matthews. He embarrasses himself
Edited by Giorgio Angelini
Jamie Kirkpatrick during a physical with Matthews, then fantasises about
Production Designer cuddling his corpse. Dahmer loses his nerve over killing
Jennifer Klide Cast a dog. His friends persuade schoolmates to pay to
Music Ross Lynch watch Dahmer perform an elaborate fake-fit freak-out
Andrew Hollander Jeff Dahmer
Production Anne Heche
at the mall. Children find a disembowelled dog in the
Sound Mixer Joyce Dahmer woods. John and his friends, alarmed at Dahmer’s
Paddy Hanlon Dallas Roberts heavy drinking and odd behaviour, drop him. His mother
Costume Designer Lionel Dahmer leaves, abandoning him in the family home. Dahmer
Carla Shivener Alex Wolff invites John home for a drink, intending to kill him.
John Backderf, ‘Derf’
©MFD The Movie, LLC Tommy Nelson John is spooked and leaves suddenly. Dahmer picks
Production Neil up hitchhiker Steven. Captions tell us that he killed
Companies Vincent Kartheiser him, and in 1991 confessed to killing 17 young men.
Basildon bonds: New Town Utopia

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 71


in the 1950s and 1960s surrounded by a
genuine community spirit and – yes – civic
pride in their surroundings, followed by pained
REVIEWS
resignation at the subsequent decline in the
fabric of the place brought on by years of penny-
pinching council cutbacks. Meanwhile, in the
youth centres, the kids were putting on the show
for themselves: Basildon spawned 1980s pop
icons Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke and Alison
Moyet, whose fans now flock from around the
world to take pilgrimage tours of the local sights.
Still, the main story here is Basildon as a
political bellwether, notably the huge ideological
shift from the union-dominated socialist
collectivism of the 1970s to the embrace of
Thatcherite individualism through the council-
house sell-off. Certainly, it’s good to hear from
those who lived through it – including the old
couple reliving the shame they felt at betraying
their political ideals to buy their council property.
But most of what we hear is from the lefty side
of the argument, and there’s a pervasive feeling
that the material is perhaps too complex for
Smith to get a real grip on it in this format.
Moreover, as the architectural sequences
cumulatively lose their impact through
repetition, and the witnesses slightly outstay
their welcome, we’re left with the sense that
Smith had a good hour’s worth of content,
but at 80 minutes or so the film is slightly
overextended. There’s intelligence, poise and
empathy here, but we are left wanting to know
that bit more than the images show us and
the witnesses (each denoted only by a single
forename) have to tell us. For all the film’s astute
choice of subject matter, it does perhaps fall
somewhat short of the precise cross-cultural
reach and enlightening compendiousness
that Patrick Keiller brings to his geographical
surveys detailing the past in the present.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Robin Green In Colour
Christopher [1.85:1]
Ian Smith Production
Filmed by Company Distributor
Christopher Cult Modern Verve Pictures
Ian Smith Executive Producer
Editors Margaret Matheson
Neil Lenthall
Christopher
Ian Smith Cast
Music Jim Broadbent
Greg Haines voice of Lewis Silkin
Sound Design
A documentary presenting an oral history of Basildon
in Essex, designated a ‘New Town’ in 1949 by Lewis
Silkin, minister of town and country planning. Various
local residents recall how the modern architecture
and green spaces were relished by those who had
moved there from squalor in London’s East End.
A sense of community developed, thanks in part
to the high levels of employment in the adjoining
industrial area and the strong influence of the
unions. By the 1970s, Basildon was a byword for
leftist solidarity, but with the election of Margaret
Thatcher’s Conservative government and the
sell-off of council houses, community cohesion
began to erode. Although cutbacks in council
spending badly affected the town, a vibrant music
scene developed at grassroots level, producing pop
talent including Depeche Mode and Alison Moyet.
In the current age of austerity, a revived local arts
centre gives some hope for cultural regeneration.
72 | Sight&Sound | June 2018
On Chesil Beach
United Kingdom/USA 2017
Director: Dominic Cooke
Certificate 15 109m 50s
Reviewed by Andrew Osmond
“Say something,” begs newly-wed Florence
(Saoirse Ronan), her bright-blue irises making
her doll-like as she lies beneath her husband
on their marriage bed. She’s asking for any
kind of communication with this man – this
boy, really – whom she loves, so long as it’s
not sexual intercourse. The tragedy is that
she’s totally unable to explain this to him.
But her plea has an inadvertent extra
significance in On Chesil Beach, the first film by
vaunted theatre director Dominic Cooke. The
source novella by Ian McEwan, published in 2007,
has little direct dialogue. Consequently, McEwan,
who has adapted his book for the film, must
devise reams of lines for the actors, paraphrased
from his text or created from whole cloth.
The book rested on the unspoken,
incommunicable tensions between its central
couple. It’s 1962. Florence and her new husband
Edward (Billy Howle) are in a Dorset hotel on
their wedding ‘night’ (though Florence notes
that it won’t be dark for hours). While the
book was split evenly between them, Ronan’s
Florence dominates the film version. She’s a
woman in an invisible trap, to which Edward is
insensitive. Florence longs to be with Edward,
to be kind to him – it’s just the sex that appals
her. As Edward fumblingly tries to undress
the two of them, Florence’s petrified, pinched
and cowed expressions scream out to the
viewer, even as Edward remains oblivious.
This narrative is broken up by flashbacks, with
mixed success. Their thrust is to counterpoint
the wedding’s disastrous first hours with the
recent, now unreachable past. We see Florence
and Edward’s joyful courtship, after they first
lock gazes at a CND rally. Both of them won firsts
at university, which fills Edward – who looks
endearingly childish throughout the film – with
the confidence to date a girl above his station.
Instead of actual sex, Florence shows him
“the greatest octave leap there ever was” as
they dance to her beloved classical music, on
state-of-the-art home audio. For his part, Edward
worships Florence but can also tease her about
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Dan Jones BBC Films present
Elizabeth Karlsen Production in association with
Stephen Woolley Sound Mixer Rocket Science,
Screenplay Ian Voigt Golan Films and
Ian McEwan Costume Designer LipSync an Elizabeth
Based on his novel Keith Madden Karlsen, Stephen
Director of Woolley, Number 9
Photography ©British Broadcasting Films production
Sean Bobbitt Corporation/ In association with
Editor Number 9 Films The Fyzz Facility
Nick Fenton (Chesil) Limited Developed by
Production Designer Production Random House
Suzie Davies Companies Studio, BBC Films
Music Bleecker Street and Co-funded by
Dorset, 1962. Newly-weds Florence and Edward
are at a hotel beside Chesil Beach, about to
consummate their marriage. Edward is nervous, but
Florence is positively terrified, despite her love for
her husband. The awkward scene is intercut with
happier memories of their meeting and courtship.
In the hotel, the couple’s attempt at lovemaking
ends in disaster. Florence runs out on to Chesil
Beach, revolted. (A flashback suggests that she was
sexually abused by her father as a child, but blocked
the memory.) Edward follows her; an argument
No sex please, we’re British: Saoirse Ronan
her urbanite’s ignorance of birdsong. In one
languid scene, the couple lie securely together
on a riverbank, untouched by the fears that are
already erupting in the framing hotel scene.
These moments shine, but some of the
flashbacks are clumsy, cued by lumpy dialogue
and marred by dramatic crimes. We’re asked to
believe, for example, that Edward, in the throes
of pre-coital desire on the marriage bed, has the
patience to tell a story about a street brawl. A
different flashback, showing Florence bonding
with Edward’s brain-injured mother (Anne-Marie
Duff), is both touching and treacly. Invented for
the film, it may have lovers of the book gritting
their teeth. So may the tweaked ending, though
McEwan keeps many of the details the same.
The book suggested an answer to the question
of why Florence is terrified of sex, though
McEwan floated it as a possibility, not a pat
solution. In the film, it is the definite reason
for her fear, one that any 21st-century viewer
would think of. More broadly, On Chesil Beach
blames the couple’s plight on outdated social
mores – Edward and Florence meet tragically too
soon for the sexual revolution. Still, the film is
more hopeful than the book was that time heals.
Perhaps Florence, who’d now be in her seventies,
might take sad solace from Lady Bird, in which
Ronan’s heroine found that first sex – especially
for a girl – can still mortify in the 2000s.
the European Cast Charles
Union - Creative Saoirse Ronan
Europe MEDIA Florence Ponting In Colour
Executive Producers Billy Howle [2.35:1]
Joe Oppenheimer Edward Mayhew
Beth Pattinson Anne-Marie Duff Distributor
Norman Merry Lionsgate UK
Marjorie Mayhew
Peter Hampden Adrian Scarborough
Ian McEwan Lionel Mayhew
Thorsten Schumacher Emily Watson
Chiara Gelardin Violet Ponting
Zygi Kamasa Samuel West
Film Extracts Geoffrey Ponting
A Taste of Honey (1961) Mark Donald
ensues. Desperate, Florence proposes that their
marriage be platonic, and that she will let Edward
have sexual relations with anyone else he chooses.
Outraged and humiliated, Edward storms away.
The marriage is annulled. In 1975, Edward
encounters a child who, he realises, is Florence’s
daughter by Charles, a member of her string
quartet and now her husband. By 2007 Florence
is a renowned musician, and Edward a morose
recluse. He goes to Florence’s farewell concert to
see her for the first time since Chesil Beach.
The Outsider
Isle of Man 2018
Director: Thomas Meadmore
Certificate PG 99m 20s
Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton
If you travel the festival circuit long enough,
you will become intimately familiar with the
earmarks of the vanity documentary. Usually
it’s a heroic portrait of a local noteworthy – a
Kosovar captain of industry building himself
a manorial home, the accomplished offspring
of a storied Danish explorer – that appears
somewhere into the bill of fare as an obvious
hand-out favour, included with the bare pretext
of local-colour audience interest, though once
in a great while one of these films will enjoy a
four-walled theatrical life in the wider world.
Consider, then, The Outsider, a document of the
triumphs and trials of Taiwan-based shipping
magnate Su Nobu, and a film that certainly
feels like nothing so much as a feature-length
advertisement for its subject, who at time of
release has been planning a return to the dry-
bulk shipping business that once netted him
billions. I don’t know if Su was directly involved
in the financing of The Outsider, directed by
editor-cum-documentarian Tom Meadmore,
but it would almost come as a relief to learn
that he was, because at the very least it would
explain the existence of a movie whose ideal
and perhaps only audience is one Su Nobu.
Meadmore does take pains to put forth
a product that is something less than pure
hagiography. Su’s obsession with his business at
the expense of his family life is treated to some
screen time, for example, as we see our subject
awkwardly trying to re-establish his relationship
with his eldest daughter at her Brown University
graduation. Many of the experts convened to
discuss Su’s precipitous rise and sudden fall
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Felicity Hunter Sun Moon
Thomas Meadmore Sound Mix Productions
Written by Matt Snowden
Thomas Meadmore Animation In Colour
Cinematography Josh Everitt [2.35:1]
Alfredo de Juan Part-subtitled
Edited by ©Sun Moon
Thomas Meadmore Productions Distributor
Music Production Miracle
Russell Fawcus Company Communications
A documentary about Taiwanese shipping
magnate Su Nobu. Su is introduced as he claims
to have had billions stolen from his account by
the Royal Bank of Scotland during the 2008
global financial crisis. Going back in time, the
film recounts the amassing of Su’s fortune.
Su, an only son born into a Taipei shipping
family, develops an early passion for ships and
business. After spending some time in the cement
industry, he branches into shipping, buying and
refurbishing old bulk carriers according to his
unique, customised designs. After taking over the
foundering family business, Su builds his company
Today Makes Tomorrow (TMT) into an industry
giant. Making a fortune through the risky buying
and selling of forward freight agreements, he begins
to pose a challenge to established Greek shipping
concerns. An innovator dedicated to building a
new fleet according to his own innovative ideas,
Su is devastated by the global financial crisis and
is forced to file for bankruptcy. Convinced that he
has been the victim of a banking fraud, he strives
to vindicate himself in the eyes of the law, while
attempting to ease his tense relationship with his
college-age daughters. He finally returns to the
shipping business, poised to continue his fight.
Taipei personality: Su Nobu
express some scepticism regarding his ongoing
attempts to prove that blame for his failure
can be placed squarely on the malfeasance of
banking institutions, and Su even comes off
rather badly in a case involving his abandonment
of the crew of one of his foreclosed-on vessels.
These incursions of critical perspective aside,
The Outsider is most often supplicant to its
subject, a dandyish dresser whose laudable stated
interests include a dedication to building hybrid
ships to ease the burden on the environment.
Su is consistently positioned as a plucky
disrupter in the old boys’ club – so when one
interlocutor says of the stodgy shipping game,
“It was a gentleman’s industry,” we get a cut to
Su letting out an earthy belch as he prowls the
deck of a ship with boyish pride of possession.
Instructional cutting is further underscored
by the baldly illustrative music provided by
Russell Fawcus and Felicity Hunter, which triple-
underscores every emotional cue, appropriately
sombre during moments of introspection,
perking up to announce that a terrible animated
interstitial is coming around the bend, and
even serenading Su with a couple of syrupy
vocal tracks. (Crooned over the closing credits:
“You’ve been fighting a war in survival mode…”)
This shellacking on of effect fails to bulk up
a movie with slim reason for being. Su, closet
full of loud blazers aside, isn’t up to the task of
playing the outsized character that testimonials
prepare us for, and though Meadmore
struggles manfully to make thriller stuff of
Su’s lawsuits – the whistleblower testimony
of a man identified as an ex-RBS employee is
the movie’s touted ‘smoking gun’ – one can be
only so excited by pans over piles of paperwork
and browser windows or ominous exteriors of
bank buildings. For all I can tell, Su may have
a valid case on his hands – but it’s a sure thing
that his director doesn’t have a real movie.
Pacific Rim Uprising
Director: Steven S. DeKnight
Certificate 12A 110m 44s
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Though palpably delighted by the opportunity
to pay homage to Japanese giant-monster/
REVIEWS
giant-robot movies and anime, Guillermo del
Toro’s Pacific Rim (2013) emerged as the monster-
loving auteur’s least personal film – too often
interrupting the large-scale devastation to
indulge in Top Gun-knockoff fighter-pilot soap
opera, as if the director were ordered to make a
movie that espoused the values of the gung-ho
paranoid patriotic villain of The Shape of Water
rather than indulge his habitual sympathy
for the outcast. A medium-sized hit, with an
especial appeal in the Far East, the film didn’t
immediately start a franchise from scratch.
This sequel has long been in development,
while competitors based on established IP – the
Transformers sequels and the ‘Monsterverse’
series (Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island) – have got
busy trampling over similar territory. Even
the ridiculous cheap imitation Atlantic Rim
(2013) managed a follow-up, Atlantic Rim:
Resurrection (2018), before the blandly titled
Pacific Rim: Uprising made it to screens with
Steven S. DeKnight, whose background
is in TV superheroics (Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, Smallville, Daredevil), at the helm.
The result is lightly likeable, which in the
circumstances is a pleasant surprise.
The original film was so intent on its
battles that it left much of its plot vague and
contradictory, but this revision streamlines the
premise – and makes something coherent out
of what seemed to be a random monster attack.
Similarly, it sidelines the messy business about
giant robots needing two pilots who can sync
their brains to control their clanking avatars.
Instead, we have a more reasonable conflict
between old-fashioned fighter jocks who want
to be inside their big tin cans and an apparent
Dragon Lady who favours remote-piloting
the machines to eliminate pilot casualties. It
might well be a sop to the Asian audience that
the seeming villain, icily played by Chinese
star Jing Tian (veteran of The Great Wall and
Kong: Skull Island) turns out to be a good guy,
literally letting her hair down to help out in the
final scrap, but the reversal is still a pleasing
shake-up of expectations. Similarly, the comic-
relief boffins held over from del Toro’s film,
Charlie Day’s Dr Geiszler and Burn Gorman’s
Dr Gottlieb, get different roles to play in
the drama, allowing for surprise twists –
Monster masher: John Boyega
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 73
 A Quiet Place
USA 2018
Director: John Krasinski
Certificate 15 90m 6s

including a genuinely creepy reveal about

Geiszler’s new wife Alice – and, at last, an
explanation of what’s been going on all along.
REVIEWS

It’s long been noted by Hollywood that any

franchise in danger of flagging can be perked
up no end by casting Dwayne Johnson as a
newbie character who raises the energy levels
and adds self-deprecating humour. Here, John
Boyega – cannily cast as the son of the character
Idris Elba played in Pacific Rim – proves that
he can pull off the same trick, playing against
straight-arrow foil Scott Eastwood or spunky kid
robot-fan Cailee Spaeny with a mix of knowing
cliché and inspired mock vanity. In his Star
Wars outings, Boyega has basically been comedy
relief, but here he makes his leading-man bones,
managing to show more personality in one
unambitious but efficient sequel than entire
casts have managed in five Transformers movies.
This entry slightly favours robots in the Silence is golden: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds
monsters-versus-robots equation, though it
comes up with imaginative variants in the Reviewed by Nikki Baughan After they fill their bags with essential
forom of hybrid cyborg Kaiju. Nostalgically, Spoiler alert: this review reveals a plot twist provisions, the youngest boy – no more than
the climax returns to the genre’s spawning In several respects, John Krasinski’s outstanding four – delightedly shows them his find: a toy
grounds, as a many-eyed gargantuan composite third feature calls to mind Jordan Peele’s 2017 space shuttle. The manner in which his father,
creature rampages on the slopes of Mount horror Get Out. Despite the very different material, named only in the credits as Lee (Krasinski),
Fuji, site of the primal epic battle depicted in both films display narrative perspicacity and tentatively takes the toy and removes the
Honda Ishiro’s King Kong vs Godzilla (1962). masterly craftsmanship. And where Peele used batteries resembles nothing so much as bomb
genre conceits to eloquently explore issues disposal; for good reason, it will soon transpire.
Credits and Synopsis of racial inequality, Krasinski and his fellow Seeing the boy’s disappointment, Regan hands
screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck him the toy; no one witnesses him retrieve the
serve up a genuinely frightening film that discarded batteries. As they walk through the
Produced by Music Amara Namani
Mary Parent Lorne Balfe Rinko Kikuchi also plays as a devastatingly effective allegory forest, the inevitable happens and electronic
Cale Boyter Sound Designer Mako Mori about protection, paranoia and power. beeps echo in the silence. The horror registers on
Guillermo del Toro Brandon Jones Burn Gorman
John Boyega Costume Designer Dr Hermann Gottlieb At the outset, onscreen text tells us that it’s the faces of Lee and wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt)
Femi Oguns Lizz Wolf Adria Arjona ‘Day 89’; of what is unclear, though an abandoned a split second before something races through
Thomas Tull Jules Reyes
Jon Jashni Production Max Zhang
town and ransacked supermarket indicate the trees and kills the boy where he stands.
Written by Companies Marshal Quan catastrophe. A family of five creep barefoot This breathless opening reveals Krasinski’s
Steven S. DeKnight Legendary Pictures Charlie Day around the store – which is virtually empty save sophisticated filmmaking approach, setting up
Emily Carmichael and Universal Dr Newton Geiszler
Kira Snyder Pictures present a for, tellingly, the still fully stocked crisps aisle the premise and showcasing the meticulous
T.S. Nowlin Legendary Pictures/ Dolby Digital/Auro – communicating only through sign language. attention to detail that will turn his lean story into
Based on characters DDY production 11.1/Dolby Atmos
created by Travis Executive Producer In Colour Their skill in this is explained by deaf daughter a masterclass of tension. While it is mostly devoid
Beacham Eric McLeod [2.35:1] Regan (Millicent Simmonds), who wears a of dialogue, it is a film rich in subtle textural
Director of
Photography Some screenings bone-anchored hearing aid through which detail. From the sand-strewn paths on which the
Dan Mindel Cast presented in 3D she can hear nothing but her own heartbeat. family carefully tread to their simple white-light/
Editors John Boyega
Zach Staenberg Jake Pentecost Distributor
Dylan Highsmith Scott Eastwood Universal Pictures Credits and Synopsis
Josh Schaeffer Nate Lambert International
Production Jing Tian UK & Eire
Designer Liwen Shao
Stefan Dechant Cailee Spaeny
Produced by Charlotte Bruus Visual Effects Pictures presents Cast
Michael Bay Christensen and Animation in association Emily Blunt Dolby Digital
Andrew Form Edited by Industrial Light with Michael Bay Evelyn Abbott In Colour
After the closure of a breach to another dimension, Brad Fuller Christopher Tellefsen & Magic a Platinum Dunes John Krasinski [2.35:1]
giant monsters (Kaiju) no longer ravage the Earth. Screenplay Production Designer Stunt Co-ordinators production Lee Abbott
Jake Pentecost, son of late hero Stacker Pentecost, Bryan Woods Jeffrey Beecroft Victor Paguia Executive Producers Millicent Simmonds Distributor
Scott Beck Music Mike Gunther John Krasinski Regan Abbott Paramount
deals in tech scavenged from the giant piloted robots John Krasinski Marco Beltrami Allyson Seeger Pictures UK
Noah Jupe
(Jaegers) that were used to fight the monsters. Along Story Sound Mixer ©Paramount Pictures Bryan Woods Marcus Abbott
with hacker Amara Namani, Jake is recruited to serve Bryan Woods Michael Barosky Corporation Scott Beck Cade Woodward
in the Jaeger corps, though Chinese industrialist Scott Beck Costume Designer Production Aaron Janus Beau Abbott
Director of Kasia Walicka Companies Leon Russom
Liwen Shao argues that the robots should be Photography Maimone Paramount man in the woods
remote-piloted drones rather than manned vehicles.
Dr Geiszler, who once mindlinked with a Kaiju, has Upstate New York, the near future. In a deserted Marcus head out to fish, and Regan storms off following
been taken over by an extradimensional intelligence town, a family of five creep barefoot through a an argument with her father, Evelyn goes into labour
and has covertly seeded Shao’s Jaegers with Kaiju ransacked supermarket, filling their bag with supplies, alone. Lee returns to the house to find Evelyn has
brains. The mutant machines grievously damage the communicating only through sign language. The had the baby. Having settled them in their basement
Jaeger corps and open breaches around the Pacific. youngest boy finds a rocket toy, but father Lee and sanctuary, he heads out to find that Regan and Marcus
Three Kaiju come through the breaches, combining mother Evelyn indicate that it is too dangerous; have fought off one of the creatures – unbeknown to
to become one mega-monster. Dr Gottlieb, Geiszler’s seeing the boy’s disappointment, his deaf older sister them, it was overwhelmed by interference from Regan’s
colleague, deduces that the monsters’ gameplan is to Regan relents. As they head through the forest, the hearing aid. When the trio are attacked again, Lee
use their volatile blood to ignite Mount Fuji, spewing boy switches on the toy and is immediately killed by sacrifices himself to save his children. Regan realises
toxic dust into the atmosphere and extinguishing an otherworldly creature that hunts using sound. that her hearing aid may be the key to their survival,
life on Earth. Jake, Amara and their comrade trainees A year or so later, the surviving family members are and uses it to incapacitate a creature, which is then
pilot the last surviving Jaegers and stop the mega- eking out a virtually silent existence and preparing for shot by Evelyn. As two more creatures are drawn by
monster before it can set off the Japanese volcano. the imminent birth of Evelyn’s baby. After Lee and son the gunfire, mother and daughter prepare to fight.

74 | Sight&Sound | June 2018


red-light warning system, the visual tapestry
of their everyday life is a constant reminder
of how they cope with their predicament.
After the initial trauma, the film jumps forward
just over a year – to ‘Day 472’, to be precise. The
four surviving family members are eking out a
low-key existence, Lee spending much of his time
in a room full of CCTV feeds and observational
notes, desperate to understand the threat, as the
kids play Monopoly with felt pieces. As Evelyn
hangs a handmade mobile, the sight of her full-
term bump brings not joy, but the appalling
realisation of what a baby means; a ticking time
bomb of noise, with no batteries to remove.
They are, however, prepared: their basement is
soundproofed, the thick wooden crib has a lid,
and there is a baby-sized mask to go with the
oxygen canisters lined up against the wall.
And yet, despite all this careful planning,
events conspire to a fever-pitch assault of violence.
Evelyn goes into labour early, alone, while Lee and
son Marcus (Noah Jupe) are out fishing and Regan
has stormed off after an argument with her father
(the trials of adolescence caring not that the world
is ending). While mother and baby survive, and
Marcus and Regan manage to fight off an attack
– helped, unbeknown to them, by static from
Regan’s hearing aid, which sends the creature
screaming in agony – Lee is forced to make the
ultimate sacrifice in order to save his kids.
Therein lies the power of A Quiet Place: despite
its well-played jump scares, it operates at a
deep emotional level. Aside from the fleeting
appearance of an ill-fated elderly couple, there
are no other human characters on screen; this
apocalyptic tale is told entirely through the prism
of a single family, one struggling to cope not only
with actual monsters, but also with insidious
personal demons of grief, blame and guilt.
Much as in Trey Edward Shults’s recent
It Comes at Night, the desire to maintain an
element of familial normality is at sharp,
disorientating and often heartbreaking odds
with the new reality. “There’s nothing to be
afraid of,” insists Lee to his son, echoing the
stock reassurances of parents everywhere.
“Yes there is!” comes the terrified youngster’s
incredulous, entirely accurate response.
This uneasy tension is augmented both by
excellent, stripped-back performances and
by pitch-perfect filmmaking. As the family
attempt to bury themselves away from the
dangers lurking in the gorgeous New York
state scenery, Charlotte Bruus Christensen’s
cinematography is by turns lush and dank,
expansive and claustrophobic. Surprisingly,
perhaps, for a film that puts so much stock in
silence, the sound design is utterly immersive.
Extended periods of quiet are broken by
powerful punches of noise; the creatures’
clicking and Regan’s whirring hearing aid
have their own peculiar, prescient harmony.
Indeed, the film’s seat-edge climax belongs
to Regan, and her realisation that she may
hold the key to finally besting the creatures.
In that cacophonous moment, the message
becomes one not of silent sanctuary but of noisy
empowerment; a realisation that survival may
not, in fact, come from avoiding the assault, but
in finding the courage to rail loudly against it.
Ready Player One
USA 2018
Director: Steven Spielberg
Certificate 12A 139m 49s
Gamechanger: Tye Sheridan
Reviewed by Pamela Hutchinson
Steven Spielberg’s latest mournful vision of
suspended childhood is drenched in consumerist
nostalgia. Ready Player One, adapted from a novel
by Ernest Cline, comprises two worlds. First, the
dystopian Earth of 2045, ravaged by ‘bandwidth
riots’ and ‘corn-syrup droughts’, typified by the
grotty vertical trailer park where teenager Wade
(Tye Sheridan) lives. Embedded in this world is
online virtual-reality platform Oasis, where Wade
retreats, along with his neighbours, as shown
Rear Window-style in a vertical panning shot that
catches residents playing blinkered and alone.
Although Wade promises that, in Oasis, “the
limits of reality are your own imagination”,
it’s no Eden. In what reads now as a dig at the
cryptocurrency rage, you can earn ‘serious coin’
in Oasis, and the best way to do that is by fighting
or racing, grabbing gold that hovers in the air or
cascades from severed limbs, platform-game style.
Conversely, the worst that can happen to you
there is virtual bankruptcy, or ‘losing your shit’.
To win the ultimate prize, control of Oasis,
described by the CEO of ruthless corporation IOI
as “the world’s greatest economic resource”, you
must complete a fiendish challenge set by its
dead creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and
find an Easter egg hidden within the game. The
only way to solve Halliday’s puzzle is to follow
clues from his own history and to be absorbed in
his idiosyncratic tastes, largely solidified in his
isolated 1980s childhood. In Oasis, life has become
gamified, and only geeks shall inherit the earth.
Halliday – as Wade’s gamer pal and love
interest Samantha (Olivia Cooke) sees before he
does – is really a tragic figure, who never kissed
a girl and lost his only friend, business partner
Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg). The Easter-egg
hunters – ‘gunters’ for short – including Wade,
Samantha and friends as well as IOI (which
wants to sell advertising in the Oasis), can
search Halliday’s memories in a database, but
it is advantageous to be conversant in his now
dated pop-culture references. IOI employs a
laboratory of brainstorming nerd-researchers,
but Wade’s gang, who quiz each other on
REVIEWS
Halliday’s favourites, are enthusiastically fluent
in brands popular decades before their birth.
Ready Player One is a pageant of these
references, an elaborate feat of CGI and copyright
clearance, with images from games and movies
speeding past to the tune of Van Halen and A-ha.
The players must be as adept at playing Atari
2600 games and Street Fighter and throwing
Madballs as they are nimble in VR. Even
canonical films Citizen Kane and The Shining
are mined for puzzle-cracking shorthand, the
latter hosting an entire set piece in which the
gamers comb the Overlook hotel for clues. The
most affectionate film references are reserved
for the Back to the Future trilogy, produced by
Spielberg himself, and well matched to this
retro-futurist caper. What should be a gleeful
rush of nostalgia soon becomes exhausting,
though – the Lego movies handled their barrage
of references with much more aplomb – and
ultimately it’s only as nourishing as the Halliday-
approved diet of Tab soda and Froot Loops.
Despite so many moments better relished
in a freeze-frame, there are cinematic thrills
in this echo chamber – notably an eye-searing
drag race through warped New York streets,
featuring both King Kong as an end-of-level
boss and an ingenious work-smart solution.
Nothing else matches this burst of visual
adrenaline; elsewhere the giddy camerawork
and eerie weightlessness of the CG imagery are
more unsettling than exciting. Visually, the film
runs the fine line between homage and cliché.
The non-CG images of earthbound players
thrashing about during their visual adventures
are more striking, but this idea was better
developed in Nacho Vigalondo’s Colossal (2016).
Post-Gamergate, there’s a toxic element to
any celebration of geek culture, which Ready
Player One is acutely aware of, even beyond
Rylance’s poignant portrayal of Halliday as a
loner with a half-lived life. Samantha proves
that her gaming mettle is equal to Wade’s (she
sees more action than she does in the book), and
there’s a significant pause after the plot
reveal that an apparently male character
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 75
 Revenge
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Certificate 18 108m 10s

is really a butch woman of colour, which Reviewed by Matthew Taylor

may be one in the eye for the Ghostbusters Spoiler alert: this review reveals a plot twist
backlash mob. Wade himself is no misogynist Writing on the notorious rape-revenge film I Spit
REVIEWS

dude-bro, but he is a yawning blank, especially on Your Grave (1978) in her landmark study of
next to Cooke’s brave, rebellious Samantha. Ben gender in horror cinema, Men, Women, and Chain
Mendelsohn provides a slimy and technologically Saws, Carol J. Clover noted that “one of the most
challenged villain as the IOI CEO, but his disturbing things about [the film] is its almost
virtual heavy I-R0k has sharper gags, delivered perverse simplicity” – it “leaves us staring at the
by T.J. Miller in a dour parody of geek banter. lex talionis or law of retribution for what it is”.
A film this desperate to recreate the pleasures of As you might expect from its upfront title,
cult fandom, while warning that life is better lived Coralie Fargeat’s ferocious, lavishly bloody debut
offscreen, treads on shaky ground. Sadly, Ready feature is an equally stripped-back take on a
Player One offers mostly surface pleasures, while subgenre that’s tied to one period (the 1970s)
encouraging audiences to dig for borrowed gold. but suddenly feels very much of the moment.
It’s also a rare instance, along with Natalia Leite’s
Credits and Synopsis M.F.A. (2017), of such a film being realised by
a woman. Fargeat doesn’t radically subvert the Lady vengeance: Matilda Lutz
template in any way comparable to, say, Gaspar
Produced by Bermuda) Lena Waithe
Donald De Line ©Warner Bros. Helen, ‘Aech’ Noé’s back-to-front Irréversible (2002), but hers is branch, emerging as a silent, implacable nemesis.
Kristie Macosko Entertainment Inc., T.J. Miller a brash, confident reworking of old tropes that From this point on, events play out with
Krieger Village Roadshow voice of i-R0k
Steven Spielberg Films (BVI) Limited Philip Zhao fuses the mythic quality of a western with the brutally logical precision, punctuated
Dan Farah and RatPac-Dune Zhou, ‘Sho’ intense body-horror of the French extreme school. by extravagantly grisly and occasionally
Screenplay Entertainment LLC Win Morisaki
Zak Penn (other territories) Toshiro, ‘Daito’
Fargeat’s canny choice of setting is an hallucinatory set pieces. The pick of these has
Ernest Cline Production Hannah unspecified desert (shot in Morocco) whose Jen taking peyote in a cave before soldering her
Based on the novel Companies John-Kamen
by Ernest Cline Warner Bros. F’Nale Zandor
stark expanses lend a suitably primal flavour guts together with a beer can, its phoenix-like
Director of Pictures and Amblin Simon Pegg to the savage standoff that ensues. Here, logo scorched on to her skin (we’ve already
Photography Entertainment Ogden Morrow twentysomething Jen (Matilda Lutz) and her witnessed ostentatious phoenix imagery in
Janusz Kaminski present in Mark Rylance
Editors association with James Halliday, married lover Richard (Kevin Janssens) descend Jen’s rebirth from the flaming tree branch).
Michael Kahn Village Roadshow ‘Anorak’ from a helicopter to his luxury modernist retreat The branding is also suggestive of the way in
Sarah Broshar Pictures, Access
Production Entertainment Dolby Atmos for a dirty weekend. The pristine villa later which Jen is viewed as a commodity by her
Designer and Dune In Colour becomes a parodic symbol of bourgeois comfort male tormentors, an angle that’s reinforced
Adam Stockhausen Entertainment an [2.35:1]
Music Amblin production
amid the feral duel in the sun playing out nearby by the vacuous shopping channels that blare
Alan Silvestri A De Line Pictures Some screenings – a particularly droll revival of the western’s conspicuously from the villa’s gigantic TV.
Supervising production presented in 3D
Sound Designer Executive
traditional civilisation/wilderness dichotomy. Like many avengers of horror past, there’s
Gary Rydstrom Producers Distributor The couple’s tryst is interrupted by the early something quasi-supernatural about the risen
Costume Designer Adam Somner Warner Bros. arrival of Richard’s hunting buddies, one of whom Jen, who rides the peyote fug to stalk the men
Kasia Walicka Daniel Lupi Pictures
Maimone Chris deFaria International (UK) quickly develops an unhealthy fixation on Jen. as they search for her vanished body. The
Stunt Co-ordinator Bruce Berman Fargeat’s camera lingers over Lutz’s body in these feckless voyeur has his eyes pricked out, while
Gary Powell
early scenes, forging queasy play with POV as the initially urbane Richard is gradually worn
©Warner Bros. Cast the two interlopers gawp at the young woman. down to a feral, snarling shambles. Both DP
Entertainment Inc., Tye Sheridan
Village Roadshow Wade Watts,
The eventual assault occurs during a hungover Robrecht Heyvaert’s pellucid, colour-saturated
Films North America ‘Parzival’ morning; when the other man stumbles across compositions and the juddering synth score
Inc. and RatPac- Olivia Cooke
Dune Entertainment Samantha, ‘Art3mis’
the scene, Fargeat opts for a grotesque close-up of from Rob (aka electro musician Robin Coudert)
LLC (U.S., Canada, Ben Mendelsohn him devouring chocolate while vacantly taking bring to mind the work of Nicolas Winding
Bahamas & Nolan Sorrento in the violation. Jen’s refusal to keep quiet about Refn, but Fargeat’s strident style doesn’t feel
Columbus, Ohio, 2045. Teenager Wade Watts spends
the crime is met with further violence. Left for overly studied. Indeed, she underpins Revenge’s
his free time online in a VR platform called Oasis, dead at the foot of a ravine, she improbably considerable technical élan and pared down
built by James Halliday, now deceased, who set a survives a heavily symbolic impalement by tree focus with a mordant, visceral edge.
challenge to decide who would own it after his death.
The winner must find three keys and an Easter egg Credits and Synopsis
hidden within the game. Wade (playing as Parzival)
and his online friends Aech, Art3mis, Daito and Sho
join the hunt, as does the IOI corporation, but no Produced by Companies Cast A desert location, present day. Wealthy businessman
one can get past the first stage, a drag race. After Marc-Etienne M.E.S. Productions Matilda Lutz Richard and his mistress Jen decamp to a remote luxury
Schwartz & Monkey Pack Jen
searching Halliday’s memory with the help of the Jean-Yves Robin Films present retreat. Their time together is interrupted by Richard’s
Kevin Janssens
Curator, Wade obtains a clue and runs the race Marc Stanimirovic A film by Coralie associates Stan and Dimitri, who have arrived earlier
Richard
backwards to win the first key. Wade and Art3mis Screenplay/ Fargeat Vincent Colombe than planned for a hunting trip. Stan immediately
work out that the next clue concerns a girl Halliday Dialogue A co-production of Stan fixates on Jen, who teases him during an evening of
was too scared to kiss. Art3mis finds the next key Coralie Fargeat M.E.S. Productions, Guillaume Bouchède
Cinematography
drinks and dancing. The next morning, with Richard
Monkey Pack Films, Dimitri
and the others follow. After Wade reveals his real Robrecht Heyvaert Charades, Logical absent on a business call, Stan makes advances at Jen.
Jean-Louis Tribes
name to Art3mis, IOI destroys his home, but Wade Editors Pictures, Nexus Roberto When he’s rejected, he rapes her; Dimitri witnesses
isn’t there. Then Art3mis’s real-world persona Coralie Fargeat Factory and uMedia the assault, but declines to intervene. Richard returns,
Samantha kidnaps him – she is the leader of a Jérôme Eltabet in association In Colour berating Stan but insisting that Jen keep quiet about
Bruno Safar with uFund [2.35:1]
rebellion against IOI. They go after the third key but Production Designer With the participation the incident. When she refuses, Richard pushes her off
IOI is ahead. Wade teams up with his digital friends Pierre Quefféléan of Canal +, Ciné + a cliff. When they go to dispose of Jen’s body, the men
Distributor
in real life but Art3mis is captured by IOI. Wade Music In association with Vertigo Films find her vanished. Gravely injured, Jen stalks the men
broadcasts a call for online friends to help them. Rob Cinéimage 12 as they search for her. She first kills Dimitri, taking
An army of avatars battle IOI to breach the fortress [i.e. Robin Coudert] With the support
Sound Design of Tax Shelter du
his weapons. Stan finds Dimitri’s body, and panics. He
holding the final key, which Wade wins by playing Zacharie Naciri Gouvernement argues with Richard, who threatens him with violence
an Atari game. Halliday gives him the Easter egg. Costume Designer Fédéral de Belgique unless he stays to finish the job. Jen tracks down and
Back in Columbus, IOI’s CEO is arrested; Elisabeth Bornuat and Tax Shelter kills Stan, then returns to the villa to wait for Richard.
Wade kisses Samantha; Halliday’s business Investors After a pursuit around the property, she kills him too.
Production
partner Og reveals that he is the Curator. The helicopter arrives to take her back to civilisation.

76 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

The Strangers Prey at Night
United Kingdom/USA 2018
Director: Johannes Roberts
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Spoiler alert: this review reveals a plot twist
Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers (2008) seemed very
like an Americanised version of David Moreau
and Xavier Palud’s minimalist French horror film
Them (2006), though the menaces besetting a
couple (Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler) in an isolated
house were a few years older, adolescents rather
than children. Grimly downbeat in the manner of
the torture-porn horror movies in vogue ten years
ago, The Strangers was an efficient, decently creepy
piece of work. That it hasn’t spun off a franchise
until now might be because its blankly masked
trio of strangers – a tall guy in a sack hood and two
girls whose nicknames are Pin-Up and Dollface –
err on the side of the generic, even as they make a
hobby of bothering and butchering random folks.
In the event, it’s a small miracle that this
isn’t one of those non-theatrical follow-ups
to mid-level horror titles – like, say, Vacancy
2: The First Cut or Joyride 2: Dead Ahead (both
2008) – but a relatively elaborate sequel
obviously framed for the wide screen.
Since The Strangers, Bertino hasn’t exactly
advanced to the front rank of genre auteurs, but
has made the found-footage horror Mockingbird
(2014) and the pared-down stalled-on-the-
road Zoe Kazan v creature feature The Monster
(2016). Here, he contributes the screenplay, in
collaboration with Ben Ketai (The Forest, Johnny
Frank Garrett’s Last Word). The direction is handed
over to busy Johannes Roberts, who has come
a long way from his thrown-together British
apprentice efforts (Hellbreeder, Darkhunters, Forest
of the Damned) and shown increasing confidence
with simple spookiness and threatening
darkness in the school-set F (2010), the alien-
attack film Storage 24 (2012), the Indian ghost
story The Other Side of the Door (2016) and the
terror-by-shark picture 47 Meters Down (2017).
Sequel escalation means that the victims are
now a family foursome (there’s a reel or two of
domestic friction before the stalking starts) and
do a better job of fighting back.The setting is more
expansive – a lakeside trailer park rather than a
single holiday home – and the persecution goes
into overdrive by taking cues from Tobe Hooper
and John Carpenter. Improbably but amusingly,
the teenage killers accompany their rampage with
80s pop hits. Kim Wilde blares from a car stereo
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Photography Cal Johnson
James Harris Ryan Samul
Wayne Marc Godfrey Editor ©The Fyzz Facility
Mark Lane Martin Brinkler Film 7 Limited
Robert Jones Production Designer Production
Ryan Kavanaugh Freddy Waff Companies
Written by Original Music Aviron Pictures
Bryan Bertino Adrian Johnston presents in
Ben Ketai Sound Mixer association with
Based on characters Chris Polczinski The Fyzz Facility
created by Bryan Costume Designer Produced by White
Bertino Carla Shivener Comet Films Limited
Director of Stunt Co-ordinator Executive Producers
US, present day. Cindy and Mike have enrolled their
troubled daughter Kinsey at boarding school. With their
son Luke, the couple drive her across country to the
school, spending the night in an out-of-season trailer
park on Gatlin Lake. They find the place deserted, though
a strange girl knocks at the door asking for a friend.
While exploring, Kinsey and Luke discover the park
Teenage dirtbags: the murderous Strangers
that is, like the driver, hardy enough to survive
being set on fire in an extended chase finale that
uses imagery from Carpenter’s 1983 film Christine
(where 1950s rock ’n’ roll signified supernatural
evil) and gives the longest-surviving stranger
some of the death-resistant qualities of slasher
villains like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees.
Prey at Night has a nice look, with wafts of
mist off the lake and blocks of solid dark around
dilapidated cabins, and Roberts knows when
to deploy a telling image – a boy bleeding
clouds of blood in a swimming pool, say – that’s
poignant as well as horrific. Top-billed Christina
Hendricks is clearly positioned to be the earliest
casualty, staying behind to be knifed in a trailer
bathroom while sulky teenage daughter Bailee
Madison (the kid from the Don’t Be Afraid of the
Dark remake) escapes through the window to
become the ‘final girl’. Given that the underlying
premise of the Strangers films is that teenagers
are (or can be) amoral monsters, there’s a
bit of thematic charge to the confrontation
between Madison’s Kinsey, who has driven
her parents to the extreme of enrolling her at
a strict boarding school, and the sociopathic
Dollface (Emma Bellomy), who literally wears
the mask of a perfect child. As usual in these
films, a victim gets to ask “Why?” after an hour
or so of torment, only to be told “Why not?”
David Dinerstein Cast Lea Enslin
Jason Resnick Christina Hendricks ‘pinup’
William Sadleir Cindy Mary Louise Casanta
Trevor Macy Martin Henderson Aunt Sheryl
Bryan Bertino Mike Ken Strunk
Alex Walton Bailee Madison Uncle Marv
Alastair Burlingham Kinsey
Charlie Dombek Lewis Pullman In Colour
Kenneth L. Halsband Luke [2.35:1]
Brett Dahl Damian Maffei
Mark Kassen ‘man in the mask’ Distributor
Jon D. Wagner Emma Bellomy Vertigo Films
‘dollface’
manager’s corpse and tell their parents. The family find
that their phones have been smashed. Three masked
attackers make a game of tormenting them. Cindy and
Mike are killed, and Luke is grievously injured after
stabbing one of the murderers. Kinsey puts up a fight and
kills another of her tormentors with a shotgun before
being chased by the chief killer. She finally defeats him.
That Good Night
United Kingdom/Portugal 2017
Director: Eric Styles
Certificate 12A 92m 3s
Reviewed by Kate Stables
“There comes a day when the horizon stops
receding,” John Hurt rasps feelingly as terminally
REVIEWS
ill screenwriter Ralph, around whom Eric Styles’s
slight but well-played drama is wrapped. It’s a
pleasing valedictory performance, Hurt’s last
lead role gaining poignancy from the fact that
he was himself being treated for pancreatic
cancer during filming. He is the prickly
centrepiece of this otherwise sentimental
adaptation of 1970s TV stalwart N.J. Crisp’s
1996 stage play about a selfish septuagenarian
attempting to end his life on his own terms.
Nakedly a showcase for Hurt’s talents, the film
never escapes its stage origins, setting most of its
encounters in and around the plush Algarve villa
that cushions Ralph and his writing from the
world. Terrace confrontations and tense meals
punctuated by Ralph’s bullying abound, with the
camera following the performances patiently, or
trailing Hurt like a puppy. With Charles Savage’s
adaptation of Crisp’s text often hitting mechanical
TV-movie notes, the few touristic seaside inserts
provided for grudge-holding son Michael (a stilted
Max Brown) feel crowbarred in. Drizzled with
Guy Farley’s syrupy score, the widescreen shots
of the enviably sunlit Portuguese countryside
beyond Ralph’s azure swimming pool seem
like grey-pound movie landscaping, the big-
screen equivalent of TV’s A Place in the Sun.
A more fundamental problem, however,
is that the members of Ralph’s family are
constructed only to reflect him and his issues.
Unlike the protagonists of Sally Potter’s The
Party (2017), another housebound story sparked
by the announcement of a terminal illness,
the characters don’t interweave. The long-
ignored Michael illustrates Ralph’s ruthless
jettisoning of family ties, and trophy-wife-
cum-nurse Anna (a one-note Sofia Helin) his
dominating selfishness. Against their bland
recriminations, Ralph’s relentless, barbed
egotism is oddly appealing, Hurt’s snarling,
foxy head darting forwards with each smiling
insult. When he turns his misogynistic vitriol
on Michael’s partner Cassie, he gives skilful
flashes of the fear that stokes Ralph’s ire.
Things perk up notably, however, when
the white-suited Visitor (a suave Charles
Dance) arrives, an operative from a mysterious
euthanasia business Ralph has engaged. As they
briskly discuss the abstract and concrete concerns
of having oneself killed, the film’s themes swim
into focus for the first time. There’s a hint
of The Seventh Seal about it (only Ralph
Hurt’s so good: John Hurt
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 77
 Truth or Dare
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Certificate 15 99m 57s

can see his visitor), though Dance’s have- Reviewed by Lisa Mullen
you-thought-this-through strictures are Blumhouse has garnered a reputation for
more Harley Street than hitman. Smooth against producing punchy, high-performing genre films,
REVIEWS

Hurt’s prickliness, Dance makes the film’s overuse and since it struck gold with Jordan Peele’s decade-
of classic quotations about death (Benjamin defining Get Out (and before that, with 2014’s
Franklin, Shakespeare, Yeats and, inevitably, Whiplash), certain expectations have become
Dylan Thomas) seem classily conversational, less attached to the brand. Truth or Dare, though, is
like borrowed gravitas. His interventions allow much like ‘truth or dare’ the game – basically,
for a couple of cliffhanger moments, the only a time-filling exercise. On one level, it looks
tension in the film’s slow-paced 92 minutes. like a winking parody of modern teen-horror,
While That Good Night’s mordant, indignity- replete with creaky social-media plot points
dreading hero makes a welcome change from and laboriously achieved opportunities for the
the seize-the-day sickliness of 2007’s The Bucket leads to snog each other. Then again, it gives
List, its discussion of death rarely rises above the impression of taking itself almost-seriously,
banalities. There is also, of course, a volte-face leaning ponderously at times on themes of
about the meaning of life – the film doesn’t sacrifice and moral culpability. It’s a pity that it
risk the questioning introspection of, say, The doesn’t go all-in one way or the other – it could
Barbarian Invasions (2003). Whispering, “There have been funnier or, preferably, darker.
are a lot of things I’m sorry for” to a sleepy Like many telegenic, soon-to-be-imperilled
Anna is Ralph’s attempt at amends, which college students, our protagonists make the
Hurt manages to make redolent with regret. mistake of going on holiday. Specifically, they Dare devils: Lucy Hale
Smart enough to make Ralph’s end of life a go on holiday to ‘Mexico’, a place populated
version of his ingrained selfishness, the film exclusively by American tourists and members the extent of the harm varies wildly: Penny
lets Hurt retain his scratchy, mercurial quality of spooky religious orders. Slightly racist Roman (Sophia Ali) has to perform a rooftop high-wire
throughout, in a performance that shows Catholic shenanigans being a staple of the gothic act while drunk, but Olivia has to, um, sleep
what he was capable of to the very end. since its earliest iterations, any derelict chapel with Lucas (Tyler Posey), the boy she is secretly
will inevitably be haunted by demons and the in love with. Apart from the creepy chapel,
Credits and Synopsis spiritual residues of historical priestly abuse. the entire film takes place in the bland perma-
And so it proves when sickly-sweet Olivia (Lucy sunshine of shiny-haired Hollywood teendom.
Hale) is persuaded by Carter (Landon Liboiron) Everything, from the characterisation to the
Produced by ©That Good Richard Seel
Alan Latham Night Limited – a bloke she has just met in a bar – to bring product placement, is glibly aspirational. At one
Charles Savage Production her friends to the unheimlich, lightning-raked point, the characters sit at a table with no fewer
Screenplay Companies Cast
Charles Savage GSP Studios John Hurt ruin on top of the hill. There, the kids agree to than three brand-new MacBooks open in front
Based on the presents in Ralph Maitland a game of truth or dare, which – oops – opens of them; Olivia’s reckless ‘niceness’ is performed
stageplay by association Sofia Helin
N.J. Crisp with Goldfinch Anna
them up to a deadly curse. They will have to and mediated through a YouTube channel
Director of Entertainment, Max Brown keep playing even when they get back to real life dedicated to her charity work helping the poor.
Photography Monte Seco Michael
Richard Stoddard Management and Erin Richards
and, worse, the game is run by a bad ghost who You long for this to be satire, but it really isn’t.
Editors the Loule Film Cassie thinks up particularly uncomfortable truths The film is haunted by the ghost of an
Mali Evans Office, Portugal Noah Jupe and dangerous dares, and will make them kill interesting question – are truth-speaking and
Chris Timson An Eric Styles film Ronaldo
Production Executive Joana Santos themselves if they refuse to follow through. fear-facing always a good thing? – yet director
Designer Producers Juanita By its nature, this set-up tends to make the and co-writer Jeff Wadlow appears to have
Humphrey Jaeger Peter Bates Charles Dance
Music by/ Victor Glynn visitor film bitty and episodic; in place of any tension so little respect for his target audience that
Conducted Paul Ward or creeping menace, there is a scattershot he can’t be bothered to think it through. As
by/Piano Geoff Iles In Colour
Guy Farley Kirsty Bell
distribution of vaguely uneasy incidents, it is, he delivers a disposable confection of
Production Alastair Burlingham Distributor interspersed with occasional jump scares. Each clichés and banter: cheap, but not really nasty
Sound Mixer Gary Collins Trafalgar Releasing
John Rodda Charlie Dombek
of the friends in turn is challenged to do or say enough. There won’t be any backslapping in
Costume Designer Stephen Evans something that will cause them harm, although the Blumhouse boardroom over this one.
Charlotte Morris Julian Hicks
Sally Roberts
Credits and Synopsis
Portugal, present day. Cantankerous elderly
screenwriter Ralph learns that he has only a short Produced by Production Penelope Present day. American college student Olivia is
time to live. He keeps this from his younger wife Jason Blum Companies Nolan Gerard Funk persuaded by her best friend Markie to join a group
Anna. Ralph calls mysterious organisation The Screenplay Universal Tyson
Michael Reisz Pictures presents Sam Lerner of other friends on a road trip to Mexico. There, she
Society, and summons his estranged son Michael. Jillian Jacobs a Blumhouse Ronnie meets Carter, who invites them all to play truth or
Over dinner, he insults Michael’s girlfriend Cassie. Chris Roach production Aurora Perrineau dare in a derelict chapel. This leads to them being
Furious, she and Michael leave. Michael proposes Jeff Wadlow A Jeff Wadlow film Giselle possessed by a demon, who will make them play the
to Cassie, and she reveals that she is pregnant. The Story Executive Producers Tom Choi
Michael Reisz
game for ever, repeatedly challenging them to do and
Jeff Wadlow Brad’s father
Visitor from the Society appears at Ralph’s villa, Director of Chris Roach Vera Taylor say dangerous things, and forcing them to commit
and discusses euthanasia and Ralph’s diagnosis. Photography Jeanette Volturno Inez Reyes suicide if they resist. Olivia is made to admit to Markie
The Visitor tries to persuade him to wait, but Ralph Jacques Jouffret Couper Samuelson Gregg Daniel that she is in love with the latter’s boyfriend, Lucas,
insists on ending his life. The Visitor injects him, Editor Detective Kranis and later to tell her that she witnessed Markie’s
and Ralph becomes unconscious. Anna shakes him Sean Albertson
Production Designer Cast In Colour father’s suicide and never told her about it. As several
into consciousness on her return; Ralph thinks that Melanie Paizis-Jones Lucy Hale [2.35:1] of their friends are killed playing the game, Olivia
he has been conned. Michael, brought back from Music Olivia determines to exorcise the demon; she tracks down
Seville by Anna, is reconciled with Ralph. News of Matthew Margeson Tyler Posey Distributor a former nun with experience of the curse, who
the pregnancy makes Ralph want to live. He tells Production Lucas Universal Pictures
Sound Mixer Violett Beane
explains that it can now only be cancelled out by
International
the returning Visitor that he wants to see the baby. Robert Sharman Markie UK & Eire Carter. Olivia tracks him down and finds him reduced
Ralph has a heart attack in the pool, is rescued Costume Designer Hayden Szeto to a state of paranoid desperation by the game. She
by Cassie and hospitalised. Michael and Ralph Lisa Norcia Brad takes him back to the chapel, but the demon kills him
work on Ralph’s final script. Cassie has the baby. Stunt Co-ordinators Landon Liboiron before he can complete the proper ritual. In the end,
A bedridden Ralph holds his grandson. The Visitor Steve Ritzi Carter
Alan D’Antoni Sophia Taylor Ali Olivia can only dilute the curse by inviting everyone
appears to Ralph, who dies of natural causes. on her YouTube channel to play the game as well.

78 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

The Wild Boys
France 2017
Director: Bertrand Mandico
Reviewed by Hannah McGill
Spoiler alert: this review reveals a plot twist
Have you ever lost track, in the pursuit of
sexual pleasure, of exactly what combination of
thoughts and actions is required for a satisfactory
conclusion? This film is a little like a cinematic
replication of that experience: sexual ideas flung
at a wall to see if they, um, stick; a bunch of
disparate erotic tropes competing to dominate
one fantasy. Delinquent boys and brutish
seamen out of Jean Genet, dewy androgynes
fit for Orlando (1992) and the sort of sexualised
plants, animals and objects generally confined
to the work of Walerian Borowczyk all rub up
against one another in an environment whose
glittery theatricality is reminiscent of Jean
Cocteau and Guy Maddin. Like Maddin, director
Bertrand Mandico – a prolific filmmaker, writer,
artist and animator – presents the playful, the
sombre and the histrionically transgressive
in similarly deadpan style, as if daring us to
work out for ourselves which elements of
his film are intended as camp comedy and
which might merit being taken seriously.
On a tropical island that is somehow home to
an exclusive French educational establishment,
a group of teenage schoolboys get carried away
while performing Macbeth for their beloved
female literature tutor (Nathalie Richard). That’s
‘carried away’ in the sense of lashing the poor
woman to the back of a horse and ejaculating
over her en masse, all while wearing blank
papier-mâché masks. It’s a startling opening
sequence – chilling in its depiction of group
violence, graphically evocative of the sadism
and semen fetishism common to much modern
pornography, and yet rather poetic and beautiful
at the same time. Further bewilderment is thrown
into the mix by the fact that all the boys are
portrayed by young women – Shakespearean
onstage gender-bending in reverse.
As punishment for their crime, the miscreants
are sent away to sea in the not-so-tender care
of a Dutch sea captain (Sam Louwyck). At first,
the onboard philosophy seems to resemble
the ideas that Genet encountered on being
sent to the experimental boys’ prison colony
of Mettray in 1926: hard graft and mastery of
a trade as disincentives to bad behaviour. “You
will become one with the ship,” the captain tells
the boys. “You will work for her.” As at Mettray,
however, competitive, sadistic and lascivious
currents soon assert themselves, with the boys
at once fiercely resentful of the captain’s efforts
to control them and desirous of his favour.
Fleshy, hairy and sexually charged objects
abound, from the hirsute fruits on which the
boys are fed to the complicated system of tethers
that secure them to the ship. Pretty soon, this
motley crew arrive at an island characterised by
priapic trees and ejaculating vegetation. There,
the captain meets up with his old friend Dr
Séverin (Elina Löwensohn), a sort of Dr Moreau
for the gender-curious. The boys, meanwhile,
have sex with a whole bunch of plant life and
undergo some unforeseen physical changes.
Is all this to be regarded as an allegory for the
upheavals of puberty? A paean to the notion of
mutable sex roles and gender identities? Or a
simple wallow in sexy imagery for those whose
REVIEWS
Girls will be boys: Pauline Lorillard, Mathilde Warnier
kicks are youth and androgyny? This is the sort does occur, being the first thing to enter one
of film that will convey very different things boy’s mind when his friend suddenly becomes
to different people; but for this viewer, after its female before his eyes; but the victim doesn’t
genuinely unsettling opening sequence, it drifted seem to mind much, and in any case, both are
further and further from saying anything effective soon distracted by the perpetrator shedding
about sex or gender, despite an unstinting his own male genitalia into the sand. “What
preoccupation with both. The fact that the ‘boys’, will you do with your dick?” enquires the
once unmasked, are clearly female is a theatrical recently raped one to her attacker. “Bury it with
flourish that scuppers any hope of convincingly dignity,” s/he responds. Easy come, easy go!
evoking the special tensions of an all-male The dreamy imagery intensifies unto the
environment. Their ‘transformation’ into women very end, when, having killed the captain and
involves an opening of shirts and abandonment engaged in a lengthy slow-motion pillow-fight-
of a drama-school roster of ‘masculine’ gestures cum-orgy, most of the boy-girls choose to leave
rather than the shocking shift the narrative the island. Dr Severin prepares them for their
presumably intends. And if maleness is depicted new lives as women by opening up her abdomen
as joyously and rebelliously sexual, femaleness to show them a gun and bullets just where one
is more vaguely and romantically portrayed, might expect to find a womb and ovaries, and by
as chiefly a matter of smiling benignly at one’s offering them a single piece of advice: “Don’t be
own breasts and those of one’s friends. No vulgar.” Credits then roll to a song, also voiced
menstruation here; no female match for the by Löwensohn, that characterises “wild girls”
innumerable instances of male masturbation; as possessing “hard nails and candy lips”. It’s an
no sexual pleasure-taking by women. ending that could be read as crude misogyny,
It’s a view of gender that fits with a fashionable irony about crude misogyny or just high camp,
school of thought – that one’s gender identity depending on how well your sense of humour
floats free of one’s reproductive equipment, has withstood what’s gone before. Much here
that female genitalia and the inner experience is enjoyable, and many will doubtless find it
of femaleness are unrelated phenomena – but arousing to boot – but it’s hard to shake the sense
it leaves the film feeling more romantic and that a bit more hardness and a bit less candy
fantastical than truly confronting. A rape might have made for a more resonant myth.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Sound Mixer With the support Cast Elina Löwensohn Subtitles
Emmanuel Chaumet Simon Apostolou of Région Réunion Pauline Lorillard Dr Séverin(e)
Screenplay Key Costumer in partnership Nathalie Richard Distributor
Bertrand Mandico Sarah Topalian with the CNC
Romuald
professor ICA Cinema
Vimala Pons
Director of In association with Jean-Louis Christophe Bier
Photography ©Ecce Films Cinéventure and Diane Rouxel public prosecutor French theatrical title
Pascale Granel Production Cinémage 10 Hubert Margaux Fabre Les Garçons
Film Editor Companies A Fresnoy, studio Anaël Snoek Octavio sauvages
Laure Saint Marc A film by Bertrand national des arts Tanguy/voiceover Lola Créton
Art Director Mandico contemporaíns Mathilde Warnier voiceover
Astrid Tonnellier With the participation co-production Sloane
Original Music of Centre National Executive Producer Sam Louwyck In Black & White
Pierre Desprats du Cinéma et de Mathilde Delaunay captain and Colour
Hekla Magnúsdóttir l’Image Animée [1.66:1]
On a tropical island, an androgynous young person, with unusual vegetation, where the captain meets his
Tanguy, marauds drunkenly while distant voices friend, the androgynous Dr Séverin. The captain also has
call his name. Sailors approach and strip him. ambiguous sexual characteristics: he has one breast. The
In flashback we see Tanguy as a member of a clique boys engage in sexual activity with various plants and
of badly behaved teenagers being schooled on another trees. After an escape attempt, they murder the captain
island. The boys get drunk while performing ‘Macbeth’ in a drunken frenzy. They develop breasts, and their male
and attack a teacher. They are sent away to sea in the genitalia drop off, though Tanguy only grows one breast.
charge of a notorious Dutch captain, who puts them The boys, now girls, leave the island, but Tanguy hides.
to backbreaking work. The boat docks on an island Left alone, Tanguy resolves to “become the captain”.
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 79
 The Young Karl Marx
Director: Raoul Peck

Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton

The most lucid, in-the-round depiction of Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels that I know comes
REVIEWS

in the critic Edmund Wilson’s brilliant To the

Finland Station (1940), a sort of literary history
of the socialist idea as it developed from the
quill pen of Saint-Simon to the world-historical
triumph of 1917. The contrasting personalities
of both men are eloquently drawn – Marx
the brilliant brooder stricken by his sense of
mission, Engels the buoyant, incurably healthy
bon vivant – while the passages detailing Marx’s
down-and-out penury in London and the
terrible toll on his family, who suffer for the
self-sacrifice of the patriarch’s life’s work, are
almost impossible to read without emotion.
Those dark days, which find Marx torn
between the demands of private and public duty,
arguably offer richer and more troubling material
for a historical biopic, but Raoul Peck’s The Young
Karl Marx is far more invested in the uplift of fiery Classy warriors: Stefan Konarske, August Diehl
fervour than in the comedown of half-finished
revolutions – it ushers audiences out with an heart of Hannah Steele’s former factory-floor has his depressions and Engels his vanities, but
abrupt blast of Bob Dylan and an assurance that worker, who along with Marx’s wife Jenny neither man is seriously compromised at any
the struggle of the 1840s has continued apace to (Vicky Krieps) is shown as a crucial contributor point. As much as flesh-and-blood individuals,
the present day. Peck’s movie was co-written with to the creative labour of their famous partners. though, they are of interest to the filmmaker as
Pascal Bonitzer, a frequent collaborator of Jacques The central romance here, however, is the vessels for ideas – the movie shows a real feel
Rivette, but one shouldn’t approach it expecting platonic pairing of Marx and Engels, begun after for the excitement of philosophical ferment
anything like Rivette’s reimagination of film form an initially awkward meet-cute. Combining in industrialising Europe, the exaltation of
and content. Prior to the anachronistic break of its their formidable intelligences, they cut a swathe intellectual eye-gouging and elbow-throwing.
closing credits, The Young Karl Marx is a costume through the too-comfortable radical circles of Curiously, though, The Young Karl Marx
drama presented in rather straightforward terms, the day, in the process encountering and crossing feels most visceral when it is most cerebral;
a contemporary co-production instance of what swords with revolutionist luminaries such as when called on to depict the suffering of
Rivette’s Cahiers du Cinéma colleagues once Mikhail Bakunin (Ivan Franek) and Pierre-Joseph the peasants and proletariats, it strikes only
disdainfully dubbed the Tradition of Quality. Proudhon (Olivier Gourmet, splendidly self- glancing, bloodless blows, failing to locate
An argument can be made for attempting a possessed), the latter seen seated in the atelier of tactile images of suffering that might ground
conventional presentation of the development of Gustave Courbet to have his picture painted. its protagonists’ polemics. Peck’s movie is a
ideas that, in their time, were quite revolutionary Peck here has turned out a piece of portraiture fleet piece of work when dealing in the life of
– just as Marx and Engels set out to produce a in the heroic line, realist wrinkles aside: Marx ideas – all that it lacks is a vital idea of life.
plan of action for class struggle that put forth
concrete ideas in plainspoken language, so too Credits and Synopsis
are Peck and Bonitzer prioritising accessibility.
One’s willingness to entertain such reasoning
probably depends on one’s belief in the role
Produced by Sound With the participation Kommission, Cast Mikhail Bakunin
Nicolas Blanc Jörg Thiel of Canal +, France Tax Shelter du August Diehl Peter Benedict
that the cinematic arts will play in fomenting Robert Guédiguian Benoît Biral Télévisions, CNC Gouvernement Karl Marx Engels’ father
Rémi Grellety Costumes - Centre National Fédéral de Belgique, Stefan Konarske Niels Bruno Schmidt
a forthcoming Workers’ Paradise. Whatever Raoul Peck Paule Mangenot du Cinéma et de Centre du Cinéma Friedrich Engels Karl Grün
efficacy The Young Karl Marx may have in socialist Screenplay/ l’image animée, et de l’Audiovisuel Vicky Krieps Marie Meinzenbach
Dialogue Production DFF - Deutscher de la Fédération Jenny von Westphalen Lenchen
study groups is outside this critic’s bailiwick, Pascal Bonitzer Companies Filmförderfonds, Wallonie-Bruxelles Hannah Steele
but it is no more intrinsically regressive in Raoul Peck Produced by Agat MDM - Mitteldeutsche In association with Mary Burns Dolby Digital
Director of Films & Cie and Medienförderung, Mercure International, In Colour
approach than Peck’s dreadful 2016 compilation Photography Velvet Film MBB - Medienboard Taxshelter.be, ING,
Olivier Gourmet
[2.35:1]
Pierre Proudhon
film I Am Not Your Negro, which encrusted the Kolja Brandt In co-production with Berlin-Brandenburg, Indéfilms 4, A Plus Alexander Scheer Subtitles
brilliant, icy-hot clarity of James Baldwin’s texts Editing Rohfilm, Artemis Film- und Image 6, Sofitvciné 3 Wilhelm Weitling
Frédérique Broos Productions, France Medienstiftung A film by Raoul Peck Hans-Uwe Bauer Distributor
in a veritable checklist of hoary agitprop clichés, Art Direction 3 Cinéma, Jouror, NRW, FFA – Developed by Arnold Ruge ICA Cinema
trotting out Doris Day as the scapegoat figure Benoît Barouh Südwestrundfunk, Filmförderungsanstalt Velvet Film Michael Brandner
Christophe Couzon RTBF (Télévision with the support of With the support of Joseph Moll French theatrical title
for white middle-class post-war prosperity. Music belge), Voo et Be the Deutsch- Agat Films & Cie Ivan Franek Le Jeune Karl Marx
Political art, no less than the posh period Alexei Aigui tv, Shelter Prod Französische
picture, can fall prey to its own platitudes.
Cologne, Manchester, Paris and Brussels, 1843-48. trouble caring for his own wife, Jenny, and their
The Young Karl Marx is a better movie, at least, A prologue explains the depredations wrought by growing family. In Ruge’s offices, Marx and Engels
than any movie with a title that lazy has a right industrialisation, and German peasants gathering meet for the second time and strike up a friendship,
to be, something it owes to the calibre of its cast. firewood in a forest are seen being brutalised by becoming companions and collaborators. A conflicted
August Diehl is, on paper, ten years too old to landowners’ private police forces. Karl Marx, a brilliant Engels returns to assisting his father in Manchester,
play Marx in this period, but the dark circles and irascible writer for Cologne’s ‘Rheinische Zeitung’ aiding the impoverished Marx when he can. Marx
under his eyes are suited to a compulsive burner newspaper who is concerned with such injustices, visits England, and with Engels joins the socialist
is arrested in a police crackdown, after which he organisation the League of the Just. Together
of midnight oil, and he gives us a refreshingly agrees to follow wealthy patron Arnold Ruge to they orchestrate a putsch that will reconstitute
rumpled Great Man, lending the future author Paris. Meanwhile in a mill in Manchester, Friedrich the organisation as the Communist League, and
of Das Kapital something of the quality of the Engels clashes with his industrialist father over the propose a statement of principles that can be readily
baggy-pants comic, with shiny black suits and latter’s treatment of workers, descending among the understood by the lay worker. In a frantic surge of
stumpy stogies, a figure as much Groucho as Irish labourers to experience their suffering at first activity involving both men and their partners, ‘The
hand. He begins a relationship with Mary Burns. Communist Manifesto’ is finalised, going to press
Karl. Stefan Konarske, as Engels, has a winning Because of Ruge’s tardy payments, Marx has in time for the revolutionary upheavals of 1848.
briskness and a vulpine charisma that wins the

80 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

Zama
Argentina/Brazil/Spain/France/Mexico/The Netherlands/Monaco/Portugal/USA/Lebanon/United Kingdom/Dominican Republic 2017
Director: Lucrecia Martel

Reviewed by Maria Delgado figures, washing and dressing their charges. DoP
Lucrecia Martel’s first three Rui Poças (Tabu, To Die Like a Man) creates a palette
See Feature features, all set in her home state of saturated colours (mustard walls, vibrant green

REVIEWS
on page 32 of Salta, Argentina, dissected a trees, the plum red of Zama’s jacket) that appear
stagnant middle class festering to be rotting on screen, emphasising the film’s
in a pretence of affluence and landscape of putrefaction; ill-fitting wigs, soiled
moral superiority. All were linked to the country’s and sweat-drenched clothes, rotting corpses and
recent past: La Ciénaga (2001) and The Holy Girl instances of plague and cholera further reinforce
(2004) evoked a crumbling bourgeoisie in the this aura of decay. Soft focus and a shallow
context of economic collapse; The Headless Woman depth of field give the thin-lipped Zama central
(2008) mapped the strategies that facilitated prominence, while simultaneously underlining
the disappearance of 30,000 people during the his deluded perspective. His dialogue becomes
1976-83 dictatorship. On one level, Zama marks less coherent as the film progresses. On a mission
a series of firsts for Martel: shot in digital and to hunt down the feared brigand Vicuña Porto
set outside Salta, this literary adaptation is an – anecdotes of Porto’s heinous crimes remind
existentialist period drama with a male lead and the population of the need for firm colonialist
a deployment of non-diegetic sound. Scratch the rule – both Zama and the film itself venture
surface veneer, however, and Zama displays many into a delirious, almost surreal space where the
of the traits that have marked Martel as one of sleep of reason produces monsters of the mind.
the 21st century’s most audacious filmmakers. The sound design shapes the very texture of
Adapted from Antonio di Benedetto’s 1956 the film. From the opening sequence, where the
novel, Zama takes its name from its sluggish intrusive hum of cicadas melds with rippling
protagonist, Don Diego de Zama, a magistrate water and the noise of children playing, sound
working for the Spanish crown in an unnamed evokes the world – the slaves, the animals and
Latin American city, likely Asunción. The insects – that the title protagonist tries to shut
action begins in 1790, though Martel offers few out. Working with regular sound designer Guido
pointers to time and place and the film makes Berenblum, Martel opts for non-diegetic sound.
no reference to the Catholic church or its role in Her deployment of the easy listening hit ‘Maria
the colonialist enterprise. Zama (Daniel Giménez Shadows of empire: Zama Elena’, recorded in 1958 by the indigenous
Cacho, best known from Arturo Ripstein’s Brazilian guitar duo Los Indios Tabajaras,
1996 crime movie Deep Crimson) is first seen for Lerma, the name originally given to Salta by its may appear anachronistic, but it both binds
looking out to sea rather than facing up to his founder, the 16th-century conquistador Hernando Zama to the decade of di Benedetto’s novel and
responsibilities on land. Early impressions are de Lerma. Governors come and go – played by reinforces the film’s intersecting conceits and
hardly favourable: caught peering at a group of three actors to denote the passing of time – but influences. These range from the quest focus of
women bathing, he slaps the indigenous woman the longed-for posting never materialises. the western to the undermining of certainty that
who dares to chase him away, revealing an angry As in The Headless Woman, while the haves Martel so admires in horror films. The result is
temper and an arrogant sense of entitlement that socialise, the have-nots service their needs. The a beguiling cinematic journey through identity
pervades much of his later behaviour. Embroiled indigenous people are positioned at the periphery: formation in Latin America, where the legacy
in a culture of corruption, where nepotism out of frame, they often feature as disembodied of colonialism and its discontents runs deep.
prevails, bureaucracy is Kafkaesque and favours
can be bought and sold with little concern Credits and Synopsis
for human welfare, Zama is the embittered
manifestation of a warped colonialist mentality.
Produced by Companies Sabato, NL Film Ministerio de Français, Musings, Toledo, soldier
Zama’s fall provides the film’s narrative pulse. Benjamin Domenech Rei Cine, Bananeira Fonds, Netherlands Turismo Provincia de CBA WorldView Juan Minujín
Born in the Americas, an americano rather than Santiago Gallelli Filmes in co- Film Production Corrientes, Musings and the special Ventura Prieto
Matías Roveda production with El Incentive, EFICINE Produced by Rei Cine, support of UNCUYO Nahuel Cano
a Spaniard, his social superiority leads him to Vania Catani Deseo, Patagonik, Producción 189, Bananeira Filmes Mendoza, Ministerio Manuel Fernández
disdain his local environment. He claims to spurn Written by MPM Film, Canana, ASUR, CNC - Centre In co-production with de Cultura y Turismo Mariana Nunes
Lucrecia Martel Lemming Film, Tele national du cinéma Picnic Producciones de Salta, Instituto de Malemba
indigenous women – even though he has a child Adapted from the Cine Productions, et de l’image animée, Made thanks to the Cultural Provincia de Carlos Defeo
with one of them – as part of a deluded strategy to novel by Antonio KNM, O Som e a Ministère des support of INCAA, Corrientes, Ministerio oriental
position himself as categorically European in his Di Benedetto Fúria, Louverture Affaires étrangères FSA, ANCINE, de Turismo Provincia Rafael Spregelburd
Director of Films, Shortcut et du Développement BRDE, Protocolo de Corrientes, Alta Captain Hipólito
tastes. Conversing with the gauche Spanish-born Photography Films, Bertha international, de Cooperación Definición Argentina Parrilla
wife of the treasury minister (Lola Dueñas, on Rui Poças Foundation, Perdomo Institut Français, ANCINE-INCAA - TV Executive Producers Jorge Roman
Editors Productions, Punta ICAA - Ministerio Concurso Nacional, Angelisa Stein Reo
jaunty form), he alludes to an imagined Europe of Miguel Schverdfinger Colorada de Cinema de Educación, Mecenazgo Cultural – Pablo Cruz
elegant snow, perfumes and “Russian princesses Karen Harley With the support Cultura y Deporte, Buenos Aires Ciudad, Gael García Bernal In Colour
Art Director of INCAA - Instituto Programa Ibermedia Fundación Ernesto Diego Luna [1.78:1]
wrapped in fur”. But this grossly mythologised Renata Pinheiro Nacional de Cine y and the special Sábato, EFICINE 189, Subtitles
Europe is one that, as the minister’s wife shrewdly Sound Artes Audiovisuales, support of UNCUYO ASUR, Netherlands
observes, “is best remembered by those who were Guido Berenblum ANCINE - Agência - Universidad Film Fund, Cast Distributor
Costumes Nacional do Cinema, Nacional de Cuyo, Netherlands Film Daniel Giménez New Wave Films
never there”. When a couple come to see Zama Julio Suárez FSA - Fundo Setorial Extensión - Secretaría Production Incentive, Cacho
with their attractive granddaughter in tow, in do Audiovisual, BRDE de Extensión Programa Ibermedia, Don Diego de Zama
©Rei Cine SRL, - Banco Regional de Universitaria, ICAA, Aide aux Lola Dueñas
search of 40 Indians to service their estate, he Bananeira Filmes Desenvolvimento Ministerio de cinémas du monde, Luciana Piñares
grants them their wish in recognition of their Ltda, El Deseo DA do Extremo Sul, Cultura y Turismo CNC, Ministère des de Luenga
SLU, Patagonik Mecenazgo Cultural - de Salta, Instituto de Affaires étrangères Matheus
alleged lineage as descendants of the area’s earliest Film Group SA Buenos Aires Ciudad, Cultural Provincia et du Développement Nachtergaele
immigrants, even though they can provide no Production Fundación Ernesto de Corrientes, international, Institut Vicuña Porto/Gaspar
paperwork to support their claim. His glances to An unnamed Latin American city, 1790. Don Diego postings. Forced by the governor to move to more
their granddaughter betray that his actions are de Zama, a magistrate serving the Spanish crown, squalid facilities on the outskirts of town, Zama
motivated as much by lust as by social snobbery. awaits a more desirable posting to Lerma to eventually volunteers to join a mission to track
Zama waits in vain for his Godot – a posting to join his family. He repeatedly petitions the local down the legendary brigand Vicuña Porto. Porto
join his wife and children in what he perceives to governor to write to the king to facilitate this move, may or may not be a fellow member of the mission,
but obstacles are consistently put in his way. Gaspar Toledo, who chops off Zama’s hands for
be a more fitting location. In di Benedetto’s novel,
Two assistant magistrates move on to different refusing an order. Zama survives the ordeal.
the desired city is Buenos Aires; Martel swaps it

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 81

 Home cinema
HOME CINEMA
Fearful cemetery: Françoise Pascal in The Iron Rose (1973)
ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
Sometimes dismissed as genre
trash or even softcore porn, Jean
Rollin’s films portray a unique
landscape of sadness and poetry
By Nick Pinkerton
They are some of the loneliest movies that I
know, the films of Jean Rollin – true outsider
movies, both in their content and in the
circumstances of their production. The man
who made them was a solitary figure in his
native France, a genre filmmaker in a country
without a robust genre tradition to compare to
that of, say, Italy or Great Britain. Critics at home
were inclined to belittle him, even coining the
term ‘Rollinade’ as a sweeping dismissal – a
word later taken up as a rallying cry by the
filmmaker’s slow-growing but dedicated cult.
I knew none of this when as a teenager I first
encountered Rollin’s films through a friend,
an obsessive member of the Rollin cult, who I
remember describing the films as “sad fairytales”.
The description fits. They are movies filled with
wanderers, fugitives and seekers searching for
they-know-not-what: the couple sealed overnight
82 | Sight&Sound | June 2018
in a seemingly city-sized cemetery in The Iron
Rose (1973); the harlequin girls fleeing a fatal
shoot-out in Requiem for a Vampire (1971) and
the cocksure brigand and sacrificial protagonist
of Fascination (1979); or Jean-Loup Philippe,
pursuing a persistent childhood vision of a ruined
castle and a mysterious woman in white in Lips
of Blood (1975). Along with the lost, roaming
figure, no image is more consistent in Rollin’s
cinema than that of the slate-coloured sea, a
prospect to dwarf man, in particular the beach
at Pourville-sur-mer, on the Normandy coast
near Dieppe, a treasured scene of his childhood
that he again and again returns to survey.
Rollin was most famously associated with the
vampire movie, thanks to a cycle of four pictures,
beginning with 1968’s The Rape of the Vampire,
which featured his enormously idiosyncratic
take on the bloodsucker, though in years to
come he dabbled in all manner of supernatural
horror. It seems incorrect, however, to call Rollin
a horror director, so little do his films rely on the
engineering of classically constructed suspense
sequences or jump scares. His work is often
startling in its imagery – for example, a tall,
narrow grandfather clock opening to reveal the
actress Dominique in The Shiver of the Vampires
(1970) – but this startlement is more a matter of
transfixingly striking or strange imagery than
the truly terrible. A film such as The Living Dead
Girl (1982), in which a recently-deceased young
woman (Françoise Blanchard) is awakened from
the sleep of death by a toxic waste spill to find
herself afflicted with a hunger for human blood,
is as glutted with gore as any movie made in the
period, but what lingers is the terrible sadness
of the movie, the desperation of the resurrected
woman’s best friend in life (Marina Pierro) to
find fresh victims for her beloved companion,
and so keep her above ground another day.
Rollin’s foremost aim is not to terrify but to
seduce, entrance, narcotise. His The Rape of the
Vampire was released in the same year as George
A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, but these
movies – each in its own way a radical break
with the horror cinema that had come before
– could not have been more different in their
tactics. Romero, a crack editor with an instinct
for compositional dynamism, was a muscular
filmmaker, intent on creating and escalating
a sense of system-overload panic. Rollin, by
contrast, had little of Romero’s pure film sense,
but his intuitive and sometimes awkward films
are suffused with an emotion born of conviction

and preoccupation. Even the occasional action set
pieces in his films have a sort of draggy, hypnotic
quality – see, for instance, the pursuit across a
nocturnal Paris in Lips of Blood – which indicate
nothing of a bravura style that might impose
itself on a viewer. But if you, the viewer, should
care to match your biorhythms to the singular
hypnotic cadence at which Rollin’s films move…
Since quite a few of Rollin’s films, Lips of
Blood and The Living Dead Girl among them,
revolve around a harking back to the better
days of bygone youth, it is worth looking at
Rollin’s own formative years. He was born in
1938 to Denise Lefroi and Claude Martin, née
Claude Rollin Roth Le Gentil, a stage actor. The
marriage did not long outlast the happy event
of Jean’s arrival, after which point Mme. Lefroi
fell into the arms of Georges Bataille, France’s
premiere literary pornographer-poet; in an
almost hilariously apt turn of events in the
biography of an eventual director of disturbingly
erotic films, Bataille is said to have read the
future moviemaker his bedtime stories.
As his films could seem like unmoored,
out-there objects tied to no particular era,
shaped by no influence save their author’s
own preoccupations, so too were Rollin’s tastes
unusual for a man of his time, and even as a
youth he seems to have been inclined to search
for things lost. He recalled being smitten from
early on with serialised cinema, a form that
was already past its prime and on the way
out in the years of his boyhood, and he would
become a particular admirer of his countryman
Louis Feuillade, director of Fantômas (1913-14)
and Les Vampires (1915-16). Rollin repeatedly
cited as among his favourite artists Clovis
Trouille, a Sunday painter who had been loosely
affiliated with the surrealist movement and
continued painting in much the same style –
brightly coloured canvases packed with horror
iconography, bare derrières, and blithe blasphemy
– until his death in 1975, like Rollin apparently
impervious to all contemporary developments
in his field. (The posters for Rollin’s own first
three movies, designed by Philippe Druillet,
represented a blissful marriage of throwback
art nouveau and contemporary psychedelia.)
Rollin may seem a figure unstuck from
time, but no artist has the luxury of truly being
so. As we arrive at the 50th anniversary of
The Rape of the Vampire, we come to the same
birthday for what are colloquially referred to
as the ‘events of May 1968’, during which time
Rollin’s movie happened to be one of a handful
playing in Parisian cinemas – a fact to which
the violence of audience reactions is often
attributed. Writing about Rollin in the New
York Times in 2012, Dave Kehr contextualises
him alongside his contemporaries, noting “the
close kinship of outsider art and the avant-
garde” before citing the overlap between the
work of Rollin and Jacques Rivette – a figure
who continued the Feuillade tradition in his
own, very different way. Furthermore, in their
reliance on the long shot and occasional air of
almost apocalyptic abjection, I find some affinity
between Rollin’s early features and Philippe
Blood sisters: The Living Dead Girl (1982)
Garrel’s dolorous, symbolist-inflected post-’68
requiems. In point of fact, Rollin’s reconnection
to early cinema was in keeping with a larger
trend in cinema of the period, represented
by figures as disparate as Andy Warhol and
Maurice Pialat – but if there was a club for
him to join, no invitation was forthcoming.
Parisian film culture from the late 60s to the
early 80s might not have embraced Rollin’s films
as a body, but the particulars of distribution and
exhibition in that era allowed him to operate
with relative freedom and even prolificity so
long as his movies contained sufficient sex and
violence to reliably turn a profit. This was no
great task, for Rollin, the boy on Bataille’s knee,
quite naturally inclined towards the subjects of
Eros and Thanatos, and even his atypical works
are entirely distinctive to him – in this number
we may include the wave-lashed seaside rape-
revenge yarn The Demoniacs (1974), his most
‘The Living Dead Girl’ is
as glutted with gore as any
movie of the period, but what
lingers is the terrible sadness
Try that on for scythe: Fascination (1979)
HOME CINEMA
overt homage to serial form, or The Grapes of
Death (1978), in which a grape blight unleashes
a zombie epidemic which only France’s beer
drinkers remain to combat. As with so many
filmmakers working in the exploitation or
‘Eurosleaze’ mould, however, Rollin would find
it increasingly difficult to operate in the VCR era,
and increasingly would be forced to turn a hand
to for-hire hardcore work under the pseudonym
‘Robert Xavier’, with personal projects like Lost
in New York (1989) and Two Orphan Vampires
(1997) coming fewer and further between.
Rollin was never a forgotten figure – he was
suitably celebrated in his last North American
appearance, at the 2007 edition of Montreal’s
Fantasia Festival – but he remained a steadfastly
solitary one. One mark of a great style is its
inimitability, and Rollin had that in spades.
When he died in December 2010, aged 72, he
took with him to the grave the peculiar qualities
of tone and atmosphere that seemed to originate
with him as uniquely as might a thumbprint
or a signature. Today he remains just slightly
too obscure to command the name-recognition
respect accorded other branded genre directors
– witness a jaw-droppingly insipid recent
write-up in the Village Voice on the occasion of a
screening of Rollin’s Fascination, which dismissed
the film as “little more than softcore porn”.
The work of reclaiming Rollin is never done,
but recent developments give cause for hope.
Through the auspices of Black House Films,
several key works are seeing new UK Blu-ray
releases; the BFI Player also hosts a number of
his films online, and one can now put hands on
a gorgeous, amply illustrated volume edited by
Samm Deighan, Lost Girls – The Phantasmagorical
Cinema of Jean Rollin, put out by the Canadian
publisher Spectacular Optical. Lost Girls isn’t
the first book devoted to Rollin, but it is unique
in the field in that it features contributions
exclusively by female writers. Rollin is an entirely
apt subject for such an approach, for the
universe of his films is an overwhelmingly
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 83

feminine one. This serves their efficacy as
HOME CINEMA
‘softcore’ product, to be sure – the more
women you have in the cast, the more heaving,
rounded bosoms in diaphanous sherbet-colored
gowns the movie can contain – but to look no
further into the gender dynamic in Rollin’s films
would be to ignore their abundance of potent
and powerful female figures, and the quite
unusual emphasis that they place on female
friendship, sealed with sex or otherwise.
Writing in a chapter on Rollin’s ‘Female
Vampire as Romantic Liberator’, Deighan finds in
Rollin’s cinema a counter-example to the classic
Victorian gothic figures of virginal victim or
snapping succubus, with his films presenting
the lady Nosferatu “as a figure of romance and
sexual liberation, the physical incarnation of a
symbolic freedom that surpassed even death”,
offering an escape from the true nightmare of
domesticity. The Rollin scholar will find a great
deal else to chew on in Lost Girls, including a
brilliant elucidation by Marcelline Block of the
parallels between the work of cinéaste maudit
Rollin and one of the original poètes maudits,
Tristan Corbière, whose 1873 collection of poetry
Les Amours jaunes (‘Jaundiced Loves’) inspired
Rollin’s 1958 short of the same name, his first
film. Deighan also offers a lengthy, rigorous
chapter on ‘Female Intimacy in Jean Rollin’s
Contes de Fées’ which grounds my friend’s old
“sad fairytales” comment in scrupulous research.
Looking back, I am sure what my friends
and I were responding to in Rollin movies years
ago was emotional rather than intellectual,
something perhaps not so far from the morbid,
melancholy, self-dramatising quality in the music
that we then shared a taste for, the drizzly, damp,
goth-inflected stuff that seemed well-suited to the
post-industrial zones of south-western Ohio. But
these movies aren’t something to be outgrown
any more than is sadness itself – and lo, reviewing
Rollin’s filmography through the bleakest winter
in memory, there was that old, familiar pang.
Particularly potent and plangent on re-viewing
was The Night of the Hunted, released in 1980, on
the cusp of the decade that would prove less than
amenable to Rollin’s sort of filmmaking. It begins
with a chance encounter between a young man
and a woman fleeing from trouble, a scene not
Clinical precision: Brigitte Lahaie and Dominique Journet in The Night of the Hunted (1980)
84 | Sight&Sound | June 2018
Rollin’s best films are triumphs
of economy and obsession
against mighty odds, renegade
movies of fugitive subjects
unfamiliar from his cinema – 1970’s The Nude
Vampire opens in much the same way – but from
there moves into chill, unfamiliar territory. The
woman, who is discovered to be suffering from
some form of amnesia, is played to devastating
effect by adult film actress Brigitte Lahaie, who
also gives lovely, open, untutored performances
in The Grapes of Death and Fascination. (Rollin had
a particular fondness for amateur performers,
including those from the world of porno, who
he never stigmatised.) She is in time recaptured
by her pursuers, but rather than being squired to
one of those half-ruined keeps of which Rollin
is so fond, she is quarantined in an antiseptic
clinic in a high-rise tower alongside others who
seem to be suffering from the same condition.
The tender camaraderie between the inmates,
united by their disorientation and suffering, is
exceedingly touching, offset by the coldness
of their antiseptic surroundings – exteriors
were shot in the La Défense business district,
burlesqued in Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1967), and
the setting anticipates what Gianna d’Emilio in
Lost Girls refers to as Rollin’s “Serials in Soulless
Cities” period when discussing Rollin’s Sidewalks
of Bangkok (1984) and Killing Car (1993).
The results of the compromised, fly-by-night
production for ten-day wonder The Night of the
Hunted later rankled Rollin – he would write that
it “contains the seed of a great film that was never
actually realised” – but the trance of downbeat
fatalism that it casts is not easily dispelled. In The
Nude Vampire, the family of vampires, revealed
to represent something like a higher stage of
human evolution, transcends and triumphs over
the conspiratorial alliance of money and science.
In The Night of the Hunted, no such salvation is in
sight. But both films, as with the best of Rollin’s
work, are triumphs of economy, emotion and
obsession against mighty odds, renegade movies
of fugitive subjects, and proof that all you need to
make a movie is a girl and a run-down château.
New releases
LA CHINOISE
Jean-Luc Godard; France 1967; Arrow Academy;
Region B Blu-ray; Certificate PG; 96 minutes; 1.37:1.
Extras: commentary by David Quandt; three interviews
with film crew; visual essay by Denitza Bantcheva; TV
report; Venice Film Festival press conference; trailer.
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
In one scene in La Chinoise young actor and
self-styled Maoist Guillaume (Jean-Pierre
Léaud) stands in front of a blackboard bearing
the names of famous writers: Pirandello,
Montherlant, Dumas, Schiller, Chekhov,
Calderón, etc. One by one he erases them
until a single name is left: that of Brecht.
The scene’s typical of the ironic ambiguity
of Godard’s film (in which, incidentally, no
Chinese woman figures) in that it appears at
once to endorse and mock the pretensions of his
group of young would-be revolutionaries – and,
by extension, his own. Occupying a plush Paris
apartment owned by the absent haut-bourgeois
parents of Véronique (Anne Wiazemsky),
they spout leftist slogans, quote lavishly from
Mao’s Little Red Book, plot terrorist acts – and
allow the working-class member of the group
Yvonne (Juliet Berto) to clean the windows,
polish their shoes and, when funds run low,
earn them some useful cash as a prostitute.
Having expelled one of their number, Henri
(Michel Semeniako), for lack of ideological
purity and seen another, Kirilov (Lex de
Bruijn, his character’s name a clear nod to
Dostoevsky’s The Devils), commit suicide, they
finally proceed to action. Véronique heads to the
Soviet Embassy to execute an attaché in protest
at Russia’s lack of support for the Vietnamese
struggle; unfortunately she kills the wrong
man and has to return for a second shot.
Lacking opening titles and credits, and
repeatedly described on-screen as “un film
en train de se faire” (“a film in the making”),
La Chinoise tosses in pop art posters, painted
slogans, an off-screen interlocutor (Godard
himself) and Claude Channes’s ludicrously
catchy number ‘Mao Mao’. Foreshadowing
the aspirations and pretensions of the May ’68
événements, and exploiting the director’s newly
established relationship with Wiazemsky, the
film prepares the way for JLG’s much-celebrated,
much-reviled shift into agitprop cinema.
Disc: A generous selection of quality
extras, with writer Denitza Bantcheva’s
shrewd analysis a standout.
GUMSHOE
Stephen Frears; UK 1971; Powerhouse/Indicator; Region
B Blu-ray; Certificate 12; 88 minutes; 1.66:1. Extras: new
interviews with Stephen Frears, Neville Smith and Chris
Menges; The Burning (1967): Frears’s debut short film.
Reviewed by Geoff Andrew
Since the perennially self-deprecating Stephen
Frears tends to attribute most virtues in his
films to their writers, it is unsurprising that
this, his feature debut, boasts a superior script
by writer-actor Neville Smith. Set in Smith’s
native Liverpool, it centres on bingo-caller
and occasional stand-up comic Eddie Ginley
(Albert Finney), whose constant fantasising
– which has already driven the love of his life
(Billie Whitelaw) to marry his elder brother
(Frank Finlay) – focuses on rock ’n’ roll and
the crime fiction of Hammett et al. When
this moves beyond ludicrous outpourings
of hard-boiled lingo (often unintelligible to
those addressed) to a newspaper ad promoting
Eddie’s services as a private investigator,
things inevitably take an unfortunate turn:
his first generously paid assignment from
an anonymous client is a contract, with
gun provided, to kill a local academic.
Most impressive is the way Smith and Frears
transcend pastiche by grounding the film in an
accurately (and affectionately) observed milieu.
While Eddie’s Americanophile posturing –
pleasingly combined with much Scouse banter,
delivered as quickfire Hawksian repartee –
makes for many droll moments, the ingenious,
labyrinthine plotting and juxtaposition of
Eddie’s romanticism with the banal, altogether
tackier realities of early 1970s Britain (which are
inextricably linked, it transpires, to those of global
politics) ensure that the film also succeeds on a
more serious level. Indeed, while the man going
down the mean streets of Liverpool and London
is not himself mean, he is tarnished, not merely
by his occasional use of racist slurs (fairly mild
for the time, it should be said) but by his almost
pathetic capacity for self-delusion. As such,
the film – beautifully performed throughout –
impresses both as an engaging mix of comedy
and crime drama, and as astute character study.
Disc: A fine transfer does justice to Chris Menges’s
superb cinematography. The interviews with
several key creative personnel are variably
satisfying; perhaps the most welcome extra
is Frears’s earlier short The Burning.
FILMS BY RAY HARRYHAUSEN
THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS
Eugène Lourié; USA 1953; Certificate PG; 80 minutes; 1.37:1
THE VALLEY OF GWANGI
Jim O’Connolly; USA 1969; Certificate U; 95 minutes; 1.78:1
CLASH OF THE TITANS
Desmond Davis; UK 1981; Certificate 12; 118 minutes; 1.78:1
Warner Premium Collection; Region-free Blu-ray
and DVD dual format. Extras: documentaries,
trailers, reproduction lobby cards.
Reviewed by Michael Brooke
Given what bounties have since emerged, it’s
startling to recall that just one Ray Harryhausen
Blu-ray (1956’s Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers) was
available in Britain at the start of 2017. Since
then, the rest of his Columbia output has been
treated to lavish Indicator box-sets, and these
three separate releases mop up much of the
rest. They offer an intriguing snapshot of the
special-effects master at different stages of his
career: his first solo effort, his swansong, and a
personal favourite that never had the reputational
or box-office due that he felt it deserved.
Anticipating Godzilla by a year in both its
rampaging dinosaurian monster and its don’t-
play-with-atoms subtext (with a don’t-mess-with-
prehistoric-germs message as a bonus), The Beast
from 20,000 Fathoms is enormous fun, and while
the joins in Harryhausen’s contributions are more
apparent than they’d be in later, slicker and better-
funded films, it’s never hard to suspend disbelief
as the rhedosaurus surfaces in New York Harbor
in one of the definitive monster-movie set pieces.
Snooper’s charter: Albert Finney and Billie Whitelaw in Gumshoe
The rhedosaurus was Harryhausen’s first
professionally produced dinosaur, while the
ones populating The Valley of Gwangi were the
last. Seventeen years of technical refinement
engendered creatures so uncannily convincing
that Jurassic Park’s special-effects supervisor
Dennis Muren later paid conscious homage to the
way they moved. Individual set-pieces are often
astonishing (the cowboys-v-dinosaurs encounter
still triggering an involuntary ‘How did he do
that?’ as the creatures are roped like cattle), but
the script is sadly well below par, frequently
betraying its origins as a 1942 project conceived
by Harryhausen’s mentor Willis O’Brien.
Clash of the Titans was a rather self-conscious
attempt to return to the past glories of
1963’s Jason and the Argonauts, with the same
screenwriter (Beverley Cross, whose wife
Maggie Smith is one of the leads) delivering a
similar mash-up of ancient Greek myths. By
far Harryhausen’s biggest budget was partly
spent on an unexpectedly starry cast, led by a
white-bearded Laurence Olivier as Zeus. If it
never matches Jason’s narrative momentum (the
dialogue scenes are sluggishly theatrical), the
Kraken, Pegasus and especially the Medusa and
her 12 individually animated hair-snakes rank
amongst Harryhausen’s most indelible creations.
Discs: These clone their US counterparts,
offering decent presentations of the main features
(Gwangi’s notorious colour shifts have been
somewhat tamed) and brief documentaries
pertaining to each film, each made with
Harryhausen’s enthusiastic participation.
LEGEND OF THE MOUNTAIN
King Hu; Taiwan 1979; Eureka/Masters of Cinema; Region
B Blu-ray and Region 2 DVD dual format; Certificate
12; 191 minutes; 2.35:1. Extras: video essay by David
Cairns; interview with Tony Rayns; trailer; booklet
Reviewed by Michael Brooke
A fish out of water in a late-1970s commercial
context, King Hu’s leisurely epic eschewed his
previous wuxia thrills in favour of the tale of a
travelling scholar (A Touch of Zen’s Shih Chun)
tasked with copying an ancient Buddhist sutra
with the power to release formerly human souls
HOME CINEMA
from an eternity in limbo. However, the unwordly
sap is lured into marriage with the sinister Melody
(Hsu Feng), who has decidedly ulterior motives.
So far so A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), but
Hu’s approach is decidedly different, his film’s
languorous pace (this is the full version, which
he described as “the leopard, not just the spots”)
letting him take full advantage of spectacular
(and then largely unfamiliar) Korean landscapes
and natural phenomena, weaving them into
what Hu described as “the feeling and texture of
the film”. In particular, its use of repetition and
circularity turns it into a philosophical essay
on the differences between the natural and
supernatural world as much as a conventional
ghost-story melodrama. That said, there are
enough nods to generic norms to keep things
more conventionally enjoyable, and these
come in intensifying flurries in the final act. Hu
beginners should probably start with Dragon
Inn (1967) or A Touch of Zen (1971), but there
are immense pleasures to be unlocked here for
those patient enough to appreciate them.
Disc: As with Eureka’s other King Hu releases,
this is sourced from the Taiwan Film Institute’s
recent restoration, and looks ravishing. Eureka’s
regular context-setters David Cairns and Tony
Rayns offer their usual reliable context (Rayns
in particular provides lots of background),
while the booklet includes writing by Glenn
Kenny, King Hu and his screenwriter spouse
Ling Chung, the latter’s contribution especially
helpful for its clear elucidation of the Taoist and
Buddhist wellsprings that fuelled her work.
LA NOTE BLEUE
Andrzej Zulawski; France 1991; Mondo Vision; Region-free Blu-
ray; 132 minutes; 1.66:1. Extras: audio commentary by Daniel
Bird and Andrzej Zulawski; interviews with Andrzej Zulawski,
Marie-France Pisier, Marie-Laure Reyre, Jean-Vincent Puzos.
Reviewed by David Thompson
That Andrzej Zulawski – who died two years
ago, and whose most famous film remains the
body-horror marital drama Possession (1980)
– has finally achieved greater recognition is
partly due to the continuing emergence
of his films on disc formats. His career
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 85
 New releases
spanned significant periods spent in
HOME CINEMA
Poland and in France, and La Note Bleue
(The Blue Note) brings both nations together
in a fractious and complex fashion.
According to the director, the inspiration for
making a film about the love affair between
Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and French
proto-feminist novelist George Sand sprang
from his own situation as an exiled Pole living
with a French ‘star’, the actress Sophie Marceau
(cast as Sand’s troubled daughter). The film
recounts Chopin’s final visit to Sand’s country
home in Nohant, where she entertained other
artists (among them Delacroix and Turgenev)
and – following her avowedly socialist principles
– dismissed her kitchen staff and obliged her
guests to help prepare meals. This fusion of
what the director describes as “eating, music
and sex” provides the backbone of a typically
kaleidoscopic Zulawski experience, in which
fantasy elements – red-cloaked figures on stilts
haunt the countryside, mythical figures pop up
to comment on the action – are intermingled
with very human psychodramas. Sand’s home
contained a small theatre, and marionettes of
the main characters strewn about the building
are ultimately engaged to perform on this
stage alongside their human counterparts.
As is common with Zulawski, these
extraordinary elements are all drawn from direct
sources – Sand’s novels, her son’s fascination with
folklore – and it’s up to the audience to digest the
dish whipped up by the stirringly mobile camera.
Keen to avoid any resemblance to Hollywood
biopics of composers, Zulawski boldly cast a real
classical pianist, Janusz Olejniczak, as Chopin,
and made him perform live on instruments of
the period. The choice is undoubtedly effective,
as is Marie-France Pisier as Sand, and if the film
is more akin to a Ken Russell fantasia than
most portraits of artists, it’s far richer and more
daring than James Lapine’s contemporaneous
riff on the subject, Impromptu (1991), in which
Hugh Grant and Judy Davis played the lovers.
Disc: The lustrous transfer is available in a
limited-edition box-set, complete with a CD
of Chopin recordings made for the film, or in
a plainer one-disc edition. The commentary is
more of a discussion about the film than a scene-
by-scene analysis, but illuminating all the same.
OTLEY
Dick Clement; UK 1969; Powerhouse/Indicator; Region-
free Blu-ray; Certificate PG; 91 minutes; 1.85:1. Extras:
audio commentary with Dick Clement; Guardian interview
with Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais; new interviews with
Tom Courtenay and Ian La Frenais; trailer; image gallery.
Reviewed by Robert Hanks
The 60s craze for dark spy thrillers was
accompanied by an almost equally intense
mania for daft spy comedies, of which Otley
is by no means the daftest. Tom Courtenay
plays the title role, a scrounger and chancer
around the Portobello Road in West London
who happens to be cadging the wrong sofa at
the wrong time, and is dozing there when one
of his antique-dealer chums is assassinated.
Otley is plunged, whingeing and pleading, into
a career in espionage, discovering a talent for
survival and enjoying a series of encounters
86 | Sight&Sound | June 2018
with a glamorous British intelligence agent
– an incongruously cast Romy Schneider.
Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais’s script
(from a novel by Martin Waddell, who went on
to greater success with children’s books such
as Owl Babies) is stronger on gags than plot,
and not all the gags have aged well: Otley, on
the run from the heavies, is dismayed to find
himself mixed up with a militant black rights
march, with banners yelling “Incinerate white
trash”. But Clement, directing his first feature,
pulls off some neat set pieces, including the very
long opening tracking-shot of Otley sauntering
down Portobello market and an entertaining
driving test-cum-car chase. Courtenay’s cowardly
self-regard plays nicely against Schneider’s
matter-of-fact warmth and glamour, and they
are supported by too many excellent character
actors to list; special mention to Freddie Jones,
uncharacteristically camp and very funny
as a freelance trader in secrets, and Leonard
Rossiter as an eccentric hitman. What larks.
Disc: As filmed by Austin Dempster, London
– swinging but a touch seedy – scrubs up
beautifully. Clement’s commentary is somewhat
rambling but still enjoyable, with some
insights into the process of learning to direct.
SEIJUN SUZUKI: THE
EARLY YEARS VOL. 2
BORDER CROSSINGS:
THE CRIME AND ACTION MOVIES
EIGHT HOURS OF TERROR / THE SLEEPING
BEAST WITHIN / SMASHING THE 0-LINE / TOKYO
KNIGHTS / THE MAN WITH A SHOTGUN
Suzuki Seijun; Japan 1957 / 1960 / 1960 / 1961 /
1961; Arrow Video; Region-free Blu-ray; Certificate 18;
88 / 87 / 77 / 87 / 84 minutes; 2.35:1. Extras: audio
commentary by critic Jasper Sharp on Smashing the
0-Line; documentary by Tony Rayns; trailers; stills gallery.
Reviewed by Hayley Scanlon
Suzuki Seijun has become the representative
figure of ‘Nikkatsu Action’ for many viewers
outside Japan, even if his particular brand of
surrealist absurdity would eventually get him
fired. Following the first volume of irony-fuelled
youth movies, this second box-set of films
taken from the first five years of Suzuki’s career
at Nikkatsu showcases the director’s work
in the crime and action genre – the studio’s
mainstay and its most lasting legacy. Though
Suzuki has come to loom large over the genre
Courtenay act: Otley
as a whole, he operated firmly within the
B-movie arena, rarely working with the bigger
stars and often with fewer resources to play
with but as each of the five films included in
this set prove the relative inconsequentiality
of a regular programme picture afforded its
director a degree of experimental freedom
not found in higher profile projects.
Nikkatsu’s action output was famously
‘borderless’ in both the geographical and
spiritual sense. Drawing influence from
international genre cinema and particularly film
noir and the western, Suzuki betrays a degree of
ambivalence towards Japan’s re-emergence on
the global stage and the perceived moral costs
of economic prosperity. The noir-leaning The
Sleeping Beast Within finds a veteran salaryman
collaborating with Hong Kong drug dealers
in revenge for being unceremoniously retired
while the amoral reporter at the centre of the
gleefully nihilistic Smashing the O-Line fears
Tokyo will rapidly become “another Hong
Kong”, a lawless land of drug-fuelled cruelty.
Drugs are a recurrent motif, cropping up
again in the western-influenced Man with a
Shotgun – but this time the threat is very much
homegrown, even if connected to a wider
international conspiracy. Deliberately unrealistic,
this is another of Nikkatsu’s singing cowboy
adventures, though its atmosphere is more
colonial romance than frontier wandering.
Played by infrequent leading man Nitani Hideaki,
Shotgun’s hero is a lone-wolf avenger and seeker
of justice who eventually opts for magnanimity
rather than personal revenge – much like the
hero of the other lone-wolf adventure included
in the set, Tokyo Knights. Teen heart-throb Wada
Koji stars as a Hamlet-esque teenage CEO
returning from study abroad to uncover the
secrets behind the mysterious death of his father,
which ultimately point to a web of conspiracy
and corruption spun by the wartime generation.
Wada’s teenage hero, for all the film’s cheerful
absurdity, embodies a kind of hope for post-
war youth, fighting for justice and honour
with unwavering determination. Eight Hours of
Terror, the earliest film included, takes us back
into post-war chaos, as a group of disgruntled
travellers pile into a rail replacement service
taking them over perilous mountain roads, only
to be hijacked by escaped bank robbers. The
claustrophobic environment quickly pushes
petty prejudices to the surface, exposing the
cracks in the already fracturing post-war society
and revealing that the kindest and bravest souls
are often those which it has already rejected. If
Sleeping Beast was keen to point out that even the
most earnest can be pushed into violence, Eight
Hours of Terror finds the reverse is also true. Suzuki
may be in a comparatively restrained mood, but
he lends his idiosyncratic eye to each of these
varying crime stories, finding unexpected depth
in the murky underbelly of post-war Japan.
Discs: Each of the films is presented in a very
fine transfer. The insightful commentary
track by Jasper Sharp on Smashing the O-Line
provides much needed context, while Tony
Rayns’s documentary adds background detail.
The set also includes a 60-page booklet
featuring new writing by Sharp.
Revival

HOME CINEMA
ANGELIC CONVERSATIONS
A box-set of Derek Jarman’s
early films offers a wealth of
insights into the work of one
of Britain’s greatest artists
DEREK JARMAN VOLUME
ONE: 1972-1986
Derek Jarman; UK 1972-86; BFI Region B Blu-ray; Certificate
18; 515 minutes. Extras: a range of archive interviews, new
interviews, documentaries, image galleries; 80-page book
with new writing, contemporary reviews and image galleries.
Reviewed by Adam Scovell
From the mid-1980s, Derek Jarman lived at
Prospect Cottage in Dungeness. The building is
a surreal, beautiful anomaly lying in the shadow
of the adjacent nuclear power station. It is now
more famous for its magnificent garden filled
with stones, wood and the strange spoils of
beachcombing. Search for any picture of inside
the cottage and a similar ideal prevails: objects,
pictures and a general array of memorabilia are
scattered everywhere. Collecting has always
been part of the director’s life and Jarman equally
amassed a huge archive of creative material, an
aspect which this box-set, detailing the first half
of his career, from 1972 to 1986, explores with Cardinal sins: Caravaggio (1986)
relish. Like Jarman’s cottage, the set is littered
with all sorts of interesting bric-à-brac, playing This collection shows the full span of Jarman’s (wrongly) denoted as one when British cinema
on the director’s habit of keeping detailed, creative potential outside film work too. One was briefly comatose. Jubilee and The Tempest
lengthy notebooks and providing the widest of the highlights among the extras is a rare are poignant in this sense too: successful
overview of his life and work so far available. documentary looking at Frederick Ashton’s underground projects which showed that there
Shining through the set are the new 2k Jazz Calendar, the 1968 ballet for which Jarman was still an appetite for daring films in the
restorations of his first series of films. From his designed the sets and the Bauhaus-esque haphazard cinematic landscape of late 70s Britain.
feature debut, Sebastiane (1976), to the director’s costumes – it’s notable that this came before A host of further extras reveals the process
most successful film, Caravaggio (1986), the wipe-clean nasty brilliance of his work for of Jarman’s filmmaking, with a huge backlog of
Jarman pushed too many boundaries to list. His Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971). Jarman was interviews with Christopher Hobbs – production
toying with visual textures paved the way for one of those rare creators who never seemed designer on Caravaggio and several subsequent
a wider-reaching visual style which banished satisfied with one form yet always maintained films – and actors Tilda Swinton, Nigel Terry,
the necessity for immaculate images in a way a quality over everything he tried. His eye was Toyah Wilcox and Jordan, among many others.
that few directors ever matched. This is before constantly roaming for new forms or new But the most fascinating parts of the set’s wealth
considering the provocative topics, activisms ways to pull apart those already existing. of extras are in the archive material, from set
and issues such films often explored. Jarman It’s telling that he came to filmmaking via and costume designs to storyboards and notes,
was forever trailed by bursts of outrage, all of super-8, a domestic form far and away from even recounting Jarman’s unmade projects.
which his work has outlasted. Along the way what most deemed worthy of being called For a director who famously ploughed ahead
there’s dystopian punk satire in the form of Jubilee ‘cinema’ at the time. Jarman’s work in this field with his films no matter what, even when near
(1978), luscious Shakespeare in The Tempest is definitive, showcased in a number of films death, to find projects lying by the wayside is
(1979), and super-8 experiments such as In the presented here as a form of temporal questioning. both surprising and fascinating. In the feature
Shadow of the Sun (1981) and the Shakespeare His decision to drag the frame rates down to Derek Jarman: The Films That Never Were, we
sonnet-driven The Angelic Conversation (1985). a bare minimum is a consequence of the sort learn from a variety of creative accomplices
Such restoration doesn’t quite sit with some of daring acceptance of visual imperfection of projects that never materialised, including
of Jarman’s more deliberately raggedy work. almost inconceivable in our second, polished the delirious sounding dystopian sci-fi Neutron
The super-8 films especially – this set contains a decade of the digital age. Combining the super-8 and a period drama, Akhenaten, following the
number of rare shorter examples, including Sloane aesthetic with non-narrative forms, homoerotica arts-endorsing Egyptian pharaoh. Hobbs’s
Square: A Room of One’s Own (1981) and Pirate Tape and the music of Coil and Throbbing Gristle, illustration work on both phantom films is
(1983) – work as grimy, crackly artefacts, their Jarman comes across as nothing less than a here too, the former being especially pleasing
grainy qualities actively resisting any polish. But rare maverick – especially in a period so often in its realisation as a pulp comic strip.
that is a minor point when the other restorations This only details a small fragment of what
are astonishingly glistening and vibrant. Derek Jarman’s eye was is a staggering collection of material from
Sebastiane’s sunlight and Caravaggio’s golds have one of Britain’s most important artists – like
never gleamed more splendidly, showing how constantly roaming for new a momentary wander around the shingly
brilliant an eye the director had for colour and
light. These are the films of a shamanic painter as
forms or new ways to pull gardens of Prospect Cottage. It will take many
meanderings to explore the full bounty of
much as a filmmaker or avant-garde provocateur. apart those already existing paraphernalia since washed ashore.

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 87

 New releases
THEY CAME TO A CITY
HOME CINEMA
Basil Dearden; GB 1944; BFI Region B Blu-
ray and Region 2 DVD dual format; Certificate U; 78
minutes; 1.37:1. Extras: J.B. Priestley-narrated We Live
in Two Worlds (1936) and Britain at Bay (1940); A City
Reborn (1945), written by Dylan Thomas; Halas &
Bachelor animated assignments for the Central Office
of Information; Michael Balcon NFT lecture (1969, audio
only); booklet notes by Josephine Botting, Alan Burton.
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
“Good heavens, this can’t be Walthamstow!”
exclaims the crusty landed gent, just one of a
cross-section of 1940s Britain suddenly finding
themselves confronting the city of the future in
this screen adaptation of J.B. Priestley’s West End
play. A churning rhapsodic score from Scriabin’s
The Divine Poem and sets resembling a De Chirico
canvas create a self-consciously arty context to
convince us of the significance of the utopian
subject matter. With much earnest speechifying
to follow from worldweary blue-collar socialist,
haughty aristo and money-grabbing merchant,
the delivery seems overcooked to the point of
self-parody; yet the film is fascinating for what
it says about the state of Britain, still mired in
war and wondering what it’s fighting for.
There’s understandable focus even now on
the Churchillian resistance that sustained the
nation in the war, but the playwright, novelist
and radio commentator J.B. Priestley commanded
huge audiences during the same era, and his
take on Britain is very different. The fantasy
setting is hokey, but at stake here is a profound
yearning for change, for a post-war nation that
will bridge social divides, liberate women and
never return to the bad old days. The subsequent
1945 Labour landslide and the creation of
the Welfare State suggest Priestley was on to
something, making this largely forgotten oddity
an essential document of its times, every bit as
valuable as the morale-boosting propaganda
dramas which have never gone out of circulation.
Disc: The transfer looks well in both formats,
accompanied by an astute selection of GPO
and COI shorts following up the main feature’s
forward-looking theme. Highlight is the archive
audio of Ealing Studios head Michael Balcon,
captured when he was in his early seventies, and
offering a perceptive aerial view of the struggles
of the British film industry from the silent era on.
DER TODESKING
Jörg Buttgereit; West Germany 1990; Arrow Video; Region
B Blu-ray and Region 2 DVD dual format; Certificate 18; 74
minutes; 1.33:1. Extras: audio commentary by Jörg Buttgereit
and co-writer Franz Rodenkirchen; interviews with Buttgereit,
composer Hermann Kopp; short films; trailer; image gallery.
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Between 1987 and 1993, Jörg Buttgereit directed
four low-budget German art-horror films
which still stand as essays in outsider art, co-
opting the seamy feel of fringe American 1970s
grindhouse gore to a confrontational punk-
art sensibility calculated to jangle nerves.
The most experimental, least narrative-
driven of the quartet, Der Todesking opens
with an emaciated naked man lying down to
die – and then repeatedly returns to the corpse
in time-lapse sequences that show the process
of decay, waxy doll skin cracking to reveal a
88 | Sight&Sound | June 2018
Urban myths: They Came to a City
skeleton while insects swarm over masses of
putrescence. Influenced by Buñuel as much as
by John Waters or Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS (1975),
the film consists of seven loosely linked sketches
set on seven days, in which characters commit
violent acts that are ultimately suicidal.
A recurring pro-suicide chain letter perhaps
threads the sequences together, but all Buttgereit’s
people are so locked in their own heads that it’s
possible they don’t notice any external stimuli…
and the genuine, affecting grimness is alleviated
by playful cineaste jokes – a video renter hovers
between My Dinner with Andre (1981) and a
pastiche Nazi sado-porn nasty (which prompts
a castration gore scene that weirdly qualifies
as comic relief); an intense conversation on a
park bench pays off with a riff on a memorable
moment from Abel Ferrara’s Ms .45 (1981).
With its strong presence in the fields of
art and exploitation, Arrow is perfectly set
up to add this to their catalogue of Criterion-
level Buttgereit releases, following equally
packed editions of his Nekromantik films.
Disc: The best-looking of all Buttgereit’s features,
this still has a rough-hewn, hand-made, grainy
feel, which comes over well in the transfer. A
wealth of contextualising extras – including
Buttgereit’s own making-of documentary Corpse
Fucking Art – support the film. The limited
edition includes a CD of soundtrack music.
TOWN ON TRIAL
John Guillermin; GB 1956; Powerhouse/Indicator; Region
free Blu-ray; Certificate PG; 96 minutes; 1.75:1. Extras:
introduction by Barry Forshaw; 1953 Guillermin featurette
Adventure in the Hopfields; 1970 audio archive of John
Mills at the NFT; trailer; booklet notes by Neil Sinyard.
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
Traditional class deference was in decline in 50s
Britain, so the theory goes, and this bustling cop
thriller provides plenty of evidence. It doesn’t
quite hang together as a whodunnit, but you
can see social attitudes shifting before your
eyes as John Mills’s abrasive superintendent,
who’s worked his way up from humble
beginnings, can barely disguise his scorn for
the tennis club set as he investigates a brutal
strangling in the country club grounds. Mills,
an actor who could play posh as well as salt-of-
the-earth, is on punchy form, almost snarling
as he peels away the layers of bourgeois
hypocrisy – his trench-coated demeanour also
bringing to mind American hard-boiled fare,
Home Counties environs notwithstanding.
Proceedings do have a slight transatlantic
air, with Hollywood comedy stalwart Charles
Coburn unlikely casting as a dodgy Canadian
doc; but Derek Farr’s delightfully slippery turn
as the scheming club secretary, playing up the
old-school tie while faking a heroic RAF record,
is a fascinating portrayal which cuts to the
quick of post-war Britain. Guillermin, always a
confident shot-maker, throws in fast-cut whip
pans, and some ground-breaking killer’s-eye
handheld POV footage; in technique, themes,
and creeping Americanisation, the film is clearly
several years ahead of the curve. Often treated
as a mere genre assignment from a talented
journeyman, it’s never had the credit it deserves,
so this splendid new edition is welcome.
Disc: Grain fanciers will appreciate the high-def
transfer of a well-preserved print. Barry Forshaw’s
intro touches all bases, and the audio recording of
John Mills at the National Film Theatre in 1970
is unsurprisingly brisk and self-deprecating, but
with a few worthwhile nuggets – including a nod
to Robert Mitchum’s undervalued acting skills.
VIVA L’ITALIA
Roberto Rossellini; Italy 1961; Arrow Video; Region B
Blu-ray/Region 2 DVD; Certificate 12; 129 minutes;
1.66:1. Extras: alternate US cut; new interview with
Rossellini assistant Ruggero Deodato;visual essay by
Rossellini biographer Tag Gallagher; original artwork.
Reviewed by Michael Atkinson
For years hallowed for his pioneering neorealism
and ethical visual choices, Roberto Rossellini
held a press conference in 1962 and announced
that cinema was dead, and that he’d no longer
be making “films”. Instead, in a fit of pique, he’d
dedicate his life to cinematising the entirety
of human history as a series of inexpensive
but ambitious television films. This pedagogic
toggle actually started the year before, with
this nation-making historical epic, though it’s
radically different from his deliberately arid later
films – huge and expensive and floridly patriotic.
On Italy’s centenary, Rossellini set out to tell the
story of Garibaldi’s 1860 campaign to unify Italy,
and his initial conquest of Sicily and Naples, as a
procedural, step by documented step. There’s no
characterisation, no drama that doesn’t involve
rallying troops, receiving messages, devising
battlefield strategies and occasionally bucking up
dispirited troops facing overwhelming military
odds. Renzo Ricci’s Garibaldi is serene and
grandfatherly; nearly everyone else is a function
of the conflict, giving the film the marching sense
of, in Rossellini’s phrase, “a documentary made
after the fact”. It’s the strategy Steven Soderbergh
employed 47 years later with Che, but Rossellini’s
visual agenda was far more spectacular, crafting
vast landscape battle sequences that envelope
dozens of square miles, and thousands of troops,
in single roving shots. It bests the scale of Miklós
Jancsó’s 1967 The Red and the White by a factor
of four, while feeling far more spontaneous
and genuine, as if the war was happening
whether or not the camera is trained on it.
Disc: The addition of the 106-minute US cut is
welcome, though inferior, while exploitationeer
Deodato’s reminiscences are amusing, no
more; Gallagher’s video essay mostly details the
Garibaldi story and Rossellini’s fidelity to it.
Television by Robert Hanks
THE RIVALS OF

HOME CINEMA
SHERLOCK HOLMES
UK 1971/1973; Network; Region 2 DVD; Certificate
12; 1,300 minutes; 4:3. Extras: image gallery.
One of the odder by-products of the culture
wars of the 1960s was the appearance on British
television of this quaint but hugely entertaining
anthology series. Having spent the better part of
the decade as the most radical, imaginative and
inspiring director-general in the BBC’s history
– or, if you take Mrs Mary Whitehouse’s view,
as Satan’s most effective emissary, fomenting
the nation’s moral decline through his gloating
promotion of naughty language and premarital
sex – in 1969 Sir Hugh Greene resigned, having
read the appointment of the “vulgarian” Charles
Hill as chairman of the BBC as a signal from
government that his ways were not appreciated.
In retirement, he took to editing collections of
late Victorian and Edwardian detective stories,
some of them massively popular at the time,
all of them more or less forgotten – The Rivals
of Sherlock Holmes (1970) was the first of these
books. Thames Television took up the idea,
with Greene as creative consultant: it looks
remarkably like cocking a snook at the Beeb.
The source material is uneven. Some of the
characters represented here were, in their day,
genuine rivals to Sherlock Holmes: Ernest
Bramah’s blind detective Max Carrados, Jacques
Futrelle’s master rationalist Professor F.X. Van
Dusen, ‘the Thinking Machine’, and especially
R. Austin Freeman’s Dr Thorndyke, a medical
man with sidelines in pathology and showing
up the police, who is introduced or reintroduced
in the first episode, ‘A Message from the Deep’. Peter Vaughan’s Dorrington, a sociopath whose
(As it happens, Thorndyke had enjoyed his own,
brief BBC TV series in the mid-60s.) Thorndyke sleuthing career provides opportunities for extortion
had all the Holmesian attributes (including a
dogged Watson type), but refined: a keener eye,
and theft, is a brilliantly insinuating and gleeful villain
higher self-regard and more developed scorn
for PC Plod: a no-shit Sherlock. The great John like Greene. That’s particularly true in a pair of The scripts are by writers of the calibre of Philip
Wood exudes amused superciliousness; it’s a stories about Horace Dorrington – the creation Mackie and Julian Bond; Palle Rosenkrantz’s ‘The
shame he wasn’t around for the second series, of Arthur Morrison (author of A Child of the Jago, Sensible Action of Lieutenant Holst’ (John Thaw
though Barrie Ingham is a decent substitute. 1896) – a sociopath for whom a sleuthing career as a Copenhagen policeman caught between
Other ‘rivals’, though, were either gimmicky provides opportunities for extortion and theft; Russian anarchists and superiors desperate
or run-of-the-mill. On the evidence presented Peter Vaughan makes a brilliantly insinuating to avoid fuss) was adapted by Michael Meyer,
here at least, neither Max Pemberton’s jeweller- and gleeful villain. The symmetry of detective the great translator of Ibsen and Strindberg.
sleuth Bernard Sutton and Baroness Orczy’s and villain is explored more thoroughly, if less And the casting is lavish. Douglas Wilmer, a
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard – a rare female plausibly, in an episode based on Guy Boothby’s distinguished Holmes for BBC television, works
detective – were individual enough to sustain 1900 novel A Prince of Swindlers: Roy Dotrice against the grain of that portrayal, offering
a career. By contrast, Carnacki, William Hope plays the cultivated, handsome yet tragically tooth-sucking eccentricity as Futrelle’s Van
Hodgson’s “ghost detective”, is all gimmick; but deformed Simon Carne, who strips off his gentle Dusen. But the pick of the series is ‘The Missing
‘The Horse of the Invisible’ is a good example manner and fake hump to become the celebrated Witness Sensation’, in which the blind detective
of the truth that, on TV, sow’s ears can make and indelibly Scottish detective Klimo, using his Max Carrados is played by Robert Stephens
the best silk purses: Donald Pleasence lends dual identities to commit daring jewel thefts. – a portrait of temperament and vanity that
off-key dignity to a story that has shades of The first season suffers a little from is a wonderful addendum to his Holmes for
Carrie, Equus and Scooby-Doo, with a reveal anglocentric stuffiness; the second expands its Billy Wilder a couple of years earlier.
that is both eerie and unintentionally hilarious field of view, with Robert Barr’s French detective Postscript: In the last issue, writing about
– why isn’t it regarded as a classic of English Eugène Valmont, Balduin Groller’s Viennese Severin’s Blu-ray of Threads, I said that there
weird horror? There is a supernatural tinge, aristocrat Dagobert Trostler and the working- was unlikely to be much to choose between
too, to L.T. Meade’s ingenious ‘Madame Sara’, class gypsy investigator Hagar of the Pawn Shop, that and the DVD version about to be issued by
which features John Fraser as languid upper- created by Fergus Hume (whose 1886 The Mystery Simply Entertainment – implying that the Blu-
class sleuth Dixon Druce, and a nasty piece of a Hansom Cab was the Girl on the Train of its ray was likely to be superior. Having seen the
of impromptu anaesthetic-free dentistry. day) and played by the excellent Sara Kestelman. Simply DVD – unlike the Severin, remastered
Indeed, for all the stiffness of the ladies’ Though the source material is dodgy, the from original BBC 16mm – I can confirm that
stays and the gentlemen’s collars, and the rigid treatment is consistently excellent. Most of it it has the edge, with a slightly richer, brighter
propriety of forms of address, nastiness is often an is shot on video – including some evocative palette. It also has somewhat better subtitles,
unignorable undertone in these stories – which studio recreations of Dickensian bustle and Severin’s team having apparently had some
may explain their appeal for an old progressive smog – emphasising how far we are from reality. trouble deciphering Yorkshire accents.

June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 89

 Lost and found

SEVEN BEAUTIES
HOME CINEMA

OVERLOOKED FILMS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE ON UK DVD OR BLU-RAY

Lina Wertmüller’s blackly comic
take on masculinity and Fascism
earned her an Oscar nomination
– why is it now so little known?
By Alex Davidson
In 1977, Lina Wertmüller became the first woman
to be nominated for the best director Academy
Award, for her film Seven Beauties (1975), made
nearly 50 years after the very first Oscars were
awarded. It would take nearly two decades before
a second woman would be similarly recognised
(Jane Campion, for The Piano in 1993). In the
70s, Wertmüller, instantly recognisable with
her distinctive, white-framed spectacles, was a
familiar enough face in the US for audiences to be
amused by Laraine Newman’s impersonation on
Saturday Night Live. In 2017, two months before
scandal hit, Harvey Weinstein campaigned,
unsuccessfully, for Wertmüller to be awarded
an honorary Oscar. Yet at a time when neglected
female directors are being rescued from relative
obscurity by eager academics, critics and cinema
programmers, Wertmüller has remained
relatively ignored, particularly in the UK.
Why has she been overlooked? Problematic
sexual politics and a fondness for misogynist
humour may be part of the reason. Unlike
her re-evaluated feminist contemporaries,
Wertmüller’s treatment of her female characters
is often disturbing. Her best known film in the
UK, Swept Away (1974) – notoriously remade by
Guy Ritchie with Madonna in the lead role – is
particularly nasty, with a spoilt, wealthy woman
being literally beaten into submission by a sailor
when the two are stranded on a desert island.
Many of her films are tough to watch and tougher
to like. Seven Beauties, however, is exceptional,
a searing, unforgettable portrait of humanity’s
capacity for survival, and of masculinity in crisis.
It is set in Fascist Italy, in Naples, where
Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini) is a small-time
crook living with his seven unattractive sisters
(hence the film’s unkind title). He isn’t much of a
man: pumped with arrogance, he struts around
the streets as if he owns the city; yet outside his
family, he is seen as ridiculous. Even the dead
disrespect Pasqualino: when he kills the man who
disgraces one of his sisters, the corpse farts back at
him. This murder marks the start of Pasqualino’s
downfall, which sees him transferred to various
grim locations – a prison, an asylum (where he
commits rape) and, in the film’s most intense
section, a concentration camp. The destruction of
his masculinity and sense of self dominates the
brilliant final chapter, as he decides that his only
hope of survival is to romance the grotesque camp
commandant, played by American actor Shirley
Stoler, best known for depicting serial murderer
Martha Beck in The Honeymoon Killers (1970).
Holocaust cinema’s unique capacity for lurid
horror is seized upon by Wertmüller. A string
Bedbound: Giancarlo Giannini as Pasqualino in Seven Beauties
An extreme caricature of
machismo brought low,
Pasqualino is funny yet
despicable, cocksure yet weak
of Nazi sexploitation films enjoyed moderate
popularity in the 1970s, usually focusing on
the debasement and torture of women. Italian
arthouse cinema in the same era also used the
Holocaust as a means to comment on mankind’s
limitless capacity for sadism. Liliana Cavani’s
troubling The Night Porter (1974) was released
the previous year. Seven Beauties features a
very brief appearance by Aldo Valletti, who
also played one of the aristocrats in Pier Paolo
Pasolini’s Salò (1975), a much more harrowing
take on Fascist Italy. Pasqualino’s first glimpse
of the concentration camp, accompanied by
Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, is a rollercoaster
of horror, as rows of naked male corpses,
WHAT THE PAPERS SAID
‘The movie’s absorbing and
mysterious... Its virtuoso
style, demonstrating once
again Miss Wertmüller’s
mastery of filmmaking, is
used to tell us a story that’s
very opaque, despairing,
and bottomless’
Roger Ebert ‘Chicago
Sun-Times’, 16 April 1976
covered in dust, fill the screen and dead men
hang from the rafters, trousers around ankles
(men with their pants down is a recurring
motif). It may be tasteless and sensational,
but it’s an undeniably potent sequence.
The commandant is not fooled by Pasqualino’s
lies, but forces him to have sex with her, on pain
of death. Daringly, Wertmüller and Giannini play
the scene for dark humour. The commandant
yawns broadly as Pasqualino struggles to
maintain an erection. As he scrunches his eyes
shut, fantasising about an old flame, she prises
them open. So despicable is Pasqualino, a rapist
and a murderer, that his punishment earns little
sympathy. Following his own rape, as Pasqualino
wheezes, exhausted, on the floor, Stoler snarls a
chilling monologue about the Nazis’ contempt,
mocking those who wish to survive at any
cost, and predicts her own consequent defeat:
“Because you are strong, you’ll manage to live on,
and eventually you’ll win. Miserable creature!
Lacking in ideals and ideas. And we, who thought
to create a master race, are doomed to failure”.
Giannini, a regular Wertmüller collaborator
who, with this role, became only the third
male performer to be nominated for the
best actor Oscar for a foreign-language film,
is tremendous as Pasqualino. An extreme
caricature of machismo brought low,
Pasqualino is funny yet despicable, cocksure
yet weak, resourceful yet cowardly, a mass of
contradictions. He is not a man with whom
many viewers would want to spend two hours,
but Giannini’s kinetic performance transforms
Pasqualino into a fascinating, hugely flawed
character. Seven Beauties is the finest work of
both Giannini and Wertmüller, and remains
a crushing vision of human resilience.

90 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

ADVERTISING FEATURE
PANDORA’S BOX
By Pamela Hutchinson, BFI Publishing,
106pp, paperback, illustrated,
£12.99, ISBN 9781844579662
Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora,
1929), starring Hollywood icon
Louise Brooks, is an established
classic of the silent era. This book
recounts the production history of
this controversial classic, uncovering
new information along the way.
A close, act-by-act reading of
the film reveals director G.W.
Pabst’s strategy for adapting Frank
Wedekind’s plays for the screen and
examines the contribution made
by Brooks, and how her enduring
cult fame has added to its legacy.
Pamela Hutchinson, editor of the
Silent London film blog, revisits and
challenges many assumptions made
about the film, its lead character and
its star. Putting the film in historical
and contemporary contexts,
Hutchinson investigates how the
film speaks to new audiences.
shop.bfi.org.uk
PICTURING THE
COSMOS
A Visual History of Early
Soviet Space Endeavor
By Iina Kohonen, With a foreword by Slava
Gerovitch, Intellect Books, paperback,
132pp, £27.50, ISBN 9781783207428
Space is the ultimate canvas for the
imagination, and in the 1950s and
60s, as part of the space race with
the United States, the solar system
was the blank page upon which
the Soviet Union etched a narrative
of exploration and conquest. In
Picturing the Cosmos, drawing on a
comprehensive corpus of rarely
seen photographs and other
visual phenomena, Iina Kohonen
maps the complex relationship
between visual propaganda and
censorship during the Cold War.
bit.ly/2H7DnrY
UNDERSTANDING
KUBRICK’S 2001: A
SPACE ODYSSEY
Representation and Interpretation
Edited by James Fenwick, Intellect
Books, 260pp, hardback, illustrated,
£70, ISBN 9781783208630
Scholars have been studying the
films of Stanley Kubrick for decades.
This book, however, breaks new
ground by bringing together recent
empirical approaches to Kubrick
with earlier, formalist approaches
to arrive at a broader understanding
of the ways in which Kubrick’s
methods were developed to create
the unique aesthetic experience
that is 2001: A Space Odyssey. As the
film’s 50th anniversary nears, the
contributors explore its still striking
design, vision and philosophical
structure, offering insights and
analyses that will give even dedicated
Kubrick fans new ways of thinking
about the director and his masterpiece.
bit.ly/2DCNm1O
STAIRWAYS TO HEAVEN
Rebuilding the British Film Industry
By Geoffrey Macnab, I.B. Tauris, hardback,
320pp, £14.99, ISBN 9781788310055
Over recent decades, the British film
industry has emerged from peril
into a new golden era. British films
have won Oscars and Cannes Palmes,
and releases like the Harry Potter
series have found enormous success.
The UK industry has seen huge
investment, both from Hollywood
studios and National Lottery funding.
This book portrays the visionaries
who helped to reshape the industry.
Through vivid first-hand accounts,
film critic Geoffrey Macnab provides
in-depth analysis of how and why
the British film industry has risen
like a phoenix from the ashes.
www.ibtauris.com
September 2012| Sight&Sound | 91
 Books

THE WELLES SPRING

BOOKS

ORSON WELLES IN FOCUS

Texts and Contexts

Edited by James N. Gilmore and Sidney Gottlieb,
Indiana University Press, 232pp,
ISBN 9780253032959
Reviewed by Ben Walters
In his later life and after his death, discussion
of Orson Welles’s work gravitated around two
perceived poles: unjustly thwarted genius and
self-sabotaging wastrel. Recently, a more refined
critical consensus has emerged that attempts to
do justice to the nuances of this titan’s protean,
promethean output through a number of related
turns. It tries to see past the alluring, unreliable
mythology of Welles created by himself
and others (not least the figure of the lone
genius); it tries to generate complex, reflexive
understandings of the dynamic conditions and
products of his career; and, fundamentally, it
tries to get to grips with the sheer volume of
work, complete and incomplete, preserved
and lost, that Welles engaged in.
Orson Welles in Focus: Texts and Contexts offers
some fruits of this approach. This scholarly
collection emerges from the Welles centenary
symposium and exhibition held in 2015 at
Indiana University, where the primary archive
of Welles’s career up to the mid-1950s is held.
Editors James N. Gilmore and Sidney Gottlieb
note their commitment to research that
unpacks “what has been avoided, overlooked,
underappreciated, or misunderstood” in Welles
studies; meanwhile, curator Craig Simpson notes,
in an article about mounting the 2015 exhibition,
that our era of YouTube clips and DVD extras is
more sympathetic to the value of “fragments,
alternative endings, and multiple versions of the
same work of art”. The other eight essays in the Welles creation scheme: the great man behind the microphone in the 1930s
volume attest to this by scrutinising less familiar
facets of Welles’s career, neglected aspects of storytelling that follows the cod-news-report goodwill ambassador, evolved into a deeply
canonical works and key personal relationships, high drama of the Martian invasion is typically committed process of ground-level participant
using a range of previously unexplored deemed boring or unoriginal by comparison, but observation, drawing him through a deep
archival sources. The results are fascinating. Vancour frames it as thoughtfully distinctive in process of “transculturation” towards a hybrid
Some chapters present compelling new the context of contemporary radio drama and internationalist understanding of “sociocultural
takes on familiar texts. Marguerite Rippy, for part of a movement whose eventual outcomes resilience and remembrance”; in the process,
instance, reconsiders Welles’s sensational 1936 included the first-person narration characteristic Welles alienated his industry and state backers.
Broadway production of Macbeth (often referred of film noir. Catherine L. Benamou gives a brilliant The result was his first major unfinished work.
to as the ‘voodoo Macbeth’) by highlighting the account of how the largely Brazilian-located Welles’s activist political engagement
little acknowledged contributions of dancer- wartime documentary project It’s All True became underpins other pieces. Gottlieb analyses the
choreographer Asadata Dafora and musician a kind of generative aesthetic crisis for Welles. column Welles began writing for the New York
Abdul Assen. Dafora, from Sierra Leone, and Benamou shows how what began as a more or Post in the final months of the war, focusing
Assen, from Nigeria, had successful American less neocolonialist project for Welles, as wartime on his shrewd critiques of politics, media and
careers but their indispensable contributions were entertainment and his warnings against nascent
elided or erased in contemporary and subsequent Our era of YouTube clips and authoritarianism. Highlighting racism and
considerations of the production, sometimes by labour relations among other issues, Welles
Welles himself. Shawn VanCour, meanwhile, DVD extras is more sympathetic took seriously this opportunity for “advocacy
offers a surprising take on the 1938 The War of
the Worlds radio broadcast, insisting on the value
to ‘fragments, alternative journalism” (though I think it’s also true that
the columns sometimes read like rush jobs).
of the latter part of the show: the first-person endings, and multiple versions’ Welles sought to put his public profile to civic

92 | Sight&Sound | June 2018

use elsewhere too. Gilmore anatomises his
correspondence of 1946, demonstrating that
Welles was widely viewed as “a prominent,
sympathetic cultural figure who regularly
participated in political action and argument”
and was actively involved with Washington
and the promotion of Jewish, humanitarian and
anti-racist causes. This article also supplies a
thoughtful examination of The Stranger (1946),
a feature often disparaged by Welles himself, as
well as critics, but whose deployment of real-
life concentration-camp footage was bold and
provocative. Both that film and the Post columns
showed Welles’s interest in using popular forms
as vehicles for political and social messages.
Other entries powerfully illuminate aspects
of Welles’s sensibility and personality. Matthew
Solomon charmingly traces the significance
to Welles of ‘old-time movies’, specifically the
unruly knockabout shorts that preceded the
codification of cinematic form around the
time of Welles’s own birth in 1915. Solomon
identifies Welles’s love for the fledgling industry
and locates ‘old-time’ tropes in several of his
projects, from The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
to the recently rediscovered footage from Too
Much Johnson (1938), rendering early Hollywood
another Wellesian lost Eden. This milieu deeply
influenced the stage production Around the World
(1946), which Vincent Longo explores with
gloriously detailed attention to the ambitious
fusion of theatrical and cinematic forms that
dictated the show’s form, conjuring a sense of
Welles’s joyous exploration of technologies
of wonder for their own sake. The proposed
bank-robbery scene – involving portals between
stage and screen and guns brandished at the
audience – sounds like an absolute treat. François
Thomas’s article about Welles’s relationship
with the journalist and producer Louis Dolivet
in the mid-1950s, meanwhile, reveals that a
liaison familiarly described as a meeting of
political minds undone by an ill-advised business
partnership was also an incredibly passionate and
intense friendship: at one point Welles insisted
“there is never any time in the day or night
when you aren’t the person I most want to see”.
Welles’s correspondence with Dolivet also
highlights the extent to which his colossal
industry operated in relation to his precarious
mental health – a subject that would bear
sensitive further exploration. His television
work is notably underrepresented here, despite
various points of connection with other projects:
the attention to place that Benamou notes in
It’s All True, for instance, maps handily on to
the travelogue series he made for ITV in 1955,
while the formally experimental storytelling
techniques described by VanCour (with regard
to The War of the Worlds) and Solomon (with
regard to Around the World) inform the bold
innovation of the 1958 pilot Welles made for
Desilu. But when it comes to Welles there is
always more to say – exciting as this volume is, it’s
even more tantalising to imagine the revelations
to come concerning the period covered here,
as well as those sure to emerge around the
subsequent decades of an unparalleled career.
BEYOND TERROR
The Films of Lucio Fulci
By Stephen Thrower, FAB Press, 432pp,
ISBN 9781903254905
Reviewed by Michael Brooke
It’s appropriate that a national cinema as
visually striking as Italy’s often is should
produce matching spin-off literature, and if
Stephen Thrower’s exhaustive study of the
films of Lucio Fulci isn’t ultimately as lavish
as Tim Lucas’s coffee-table-breaking Mario
Bava tribute All the Colors of the Dark (2007), it’s
far closer to that benchmark than the norm.
The book’s sheer heft impresses even before
it’s opened, and even those who bought the
1999 first edition may well be mollified with
an additional 80,000 words (sic) and many
more stills, including 80 full-colour pages.
After an amusingly masochistic account of his
own near-disastrous 1995 attempt to interview
his subject (an endeavour almost torpedoed
outright by Rome’s suburban railway network
and Fulci’s foul mood), Thrower opens with a
lengthy discussion of Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979),
the film that established Fulci’s wider reputation
in the English-speaking world, for better or worse.
Thereafter, much of the book chronologically
surveys his life and output, much of which may
be unfamiliar even to ardent fans. Each film gets
full credits and supplementary info (including, in
an appealingly scholarly touch, multiple release
dates across individual Italian regions), a Sight &
Sound-style synopsis, a production history and a
critical analysis. Thrower also takes full advantage
of Fulci’s – or, more accurately, the Italian film
industry’s – penchant for genre-hopping to write
chapters devoted to the comedies, the gialli,
the non-horror films, etc, without significantly
breaking the forward momentum. (The comedies
in particular are largely terra incognita for
English-language criticism, although they form
a surprisingly big chunk of his filmography,
and he worked repeatedly with such major
local stars as Totò, Alberto Sordi and the duo
Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia.) The book
therefore doubles as a fascinating history of genre
filmmaking in Italy – and sometimes elsewhere –
Cinzia Monreale in The Beyond (1981)
an essentially reactive pursuit as far as producers
were concerned, regardless of their directors’
BOOKS
occasional visionary ambitions and tendency
to introduce weirdly poetic imagery even into
the midst of gore-drenched zombie invasions.
Thrower’s admiration for Fulci’s major work
is self-evident (for him, 1981’s The Beyond is
the masterpiece, but he’s keen to rehabilitate
films like 1977’s The Psychic, which he argues
suffered from not being widely screened until
after Fulci had become indelibly associated
with a certain kind of exceptionally visceral
horror), but he avoids the common critical
trap of unduly elevating him as an auteur.
Indeed, chapter nine is specifically about the
challenges of appreciating Fulci from a critical
perspective while consciously eschewing
dogmatic auteurism. Like most commercial
filmmakers, he relied heavily on regular
collaborators (especially screenwriter Dardano
Sacchetti, cinematographer Sergio Salvati and
composer Fabio Frizzi), and Thrower is surely
right to blame his late creative decline partly on
his inability to strike fresh creative partnerships
as fruitful as those he’d enjoyed before.
Thrower is also disarmingly happy to admit
that many of Fulci’s films are disappointing
and some flat-out dreadful (“I ladri [1959] has
little to recommend it besides the simple fact
that it marks Fulci’s debut. One notes, more in
desperation than enthusiasm, the first corpse
in the Fulci canon”), but he’s always alert to the
fact that their shortcomings often tell a revealing
story of their own. He commendably resists the
temptation to read too much into the endlessly
provocative name of the evil Dr Freudstein in The
House by the Cemetery (1981), pointing out that
despite its seemingly obvious fusion of Freud
and Frankenstein (a conceit exacerbated by the
novelty of the self-repairing Freudstein being
his own monster), it may simply be an in-joke
tribute to veteran Italian sales agent Michel
Freudenstein. Although willing to cite the likes
of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault where
deemed necessary, and to compare the bizarrely
self-reflexive Nightmare Concert (aka A Cat in the
Brain, 1990) with films by Jean Cocteau, Derek
Jarman, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Woody
Allen, Thrower’s style is appealingly chatty and
demotic: those familiar with his magnum opus
Nightmare USA (2007) will know what to expect.
Unsurprisingly, given his own musical
background in bands such as Coil, Thrower
devotes an entire chapter to the close
relationships Fulci, a former jazz trumpeter,
enjoyed with his various composers; there’s
also a section on unrealised and partially
realised projects. Appendices include numerous
filmographies (regular actors, Fulci’s work for
other filmmakers), an account of Fulci’s less
than cordial relationship with the BBFC (the
potential legal problems with 1982’s notorious,
initially banned and still censored The New
York Ripper being discussed in especial depth),
a list of both current and historic British video
and DVD releases (and, equally usefully, the
versions of the films contained therein) and a
gratifyingly detailed and much-needed index.
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 93
 DISCOVER 80+ YEARS
OF UNIQUE FILM
CRITICISM & COMMENT
Pay by
Direct Debit (UK)
and get a
12 MONTHS PRINT+DIGITAL EDITION*
FREE
BFI DVD

+ £50*
£75
(UK)

(WORLDWIDE)

12 MONTHS DIGITAL EDITION

£35 (UK/WORLDWIDE)

COMPLETE ONLINE ARCHIVE

FREE WITH ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS

80+ YEARS OF SIGHT &

SOUND AND MONTHLY
FILM BULLETIN

Image: Call Me By Your Name – voted one of the best films

of 2017 by Sight & Sound © 2017 Frenesy Film Company bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/subscribe
SRL and La Cinefacture SARL. All Rights Reserved.
Available now on Blu-ray & DVD. +44 (0) 20 8955 7070
FEEDBACK
READERS’ LETTERS
Letters are welcome, and should be
addressed to the Editor at Sight & Sound,
BFI, 21 Stephen Street, London w1t 1ln
Email: S&S@bfi.org.uk
SUSPECT PACKAGES
I was pleased to see Adam MacDonald’s letter
about 4K Digital Cinema Packages (Letters,
S&S, March), and disappointed that the only
printed response was Patrick Fahy’s counsel
of despair (Letters, S&S, May). A number of
venues in West Yorkshire advertise their 4K
projectors but only one publicises actual 4K
DCPs. The other forms of ‘high definition’ are
35mm and 70mm film prints: I would request
that reviewers provide information when
any titles are distributed in these formats.
Even better, reviewers could follow the
example of the best reports in the Home Cinema
pages in discussing the quality of the transfer of
prints. 35mm and 70mm prints have always been
variable, but with digital formats the quality of
release versions is virtually a lottery. It is clear that
some distributors actually upload digital video
on to DCPs – that is not a theatrical standard. If
the quality at the cinema is not better than home
video, exhibitors will see audiences drain away.
Keith Withall Leeds
‘IF….’ AND BUT…
Your piece on the ending of If.… (S&S, May) was
a welcome reminder to a new generation of film
enthusiasts of one of the great masterpieces
of British cinema, uniquely fusing politics,
social satire and surrealism in a manner quite
unlike any other British film I know. However,
the film’s ending is problematic: in the light
of recent events, it is difficult to celebrate
and feel exhilarated by this revolutionary
action as we could in 1968. Now, the ending
induces a queasy feeling. It also won’t do to
describe the perpetrators of school shootings
as ‘inadequates’, a term I do not expect to see
in an enlightened journal such as S&S.
Noel Hess By email
NO KEN? D’OH!
Re: ‘Amateur hours’ by Nick Pinkerton (Wide
Angle, S&S, May) – what? A rumination
on the filmic casting of amateurs without
mention of the doyen of this vital art?
Critical evaluations of Ken Loach’s 50-plus
years of work may differ. But surely his supreme,
recurrent talent has been as a casting director, able
to find time after time a face, a voice, a posture,
a gait, a lay person of any age, gender, class or
ethnicity who can render a character relevant
to his specific narrative needs. Even a notable
pro like Ricky Tomlinson really played himself
in Riff-Raff (1991) and Raining Stones (1993).
The fault no doubt lies with the Film Society
of Lincoln Center for omitting Loach from its
survey of ‘non-actors’ in movies. But it surely
behoves your author to put them right.
Nick Grant By email
ABRIDGED TOO FAR
Having read your excellent interview with
Ken Burns and Lynn Novick about their ten-
episode “16-and-a-half-hour” documentary
LETTER OF THE MONTH
THE VANISHING LADIES
Christina Newland claims that in Hollywood
during World War II, “female directors,
writers and producers had much greater
opportunities to showcase their talents”
(‘The fortunes of war’, S&S, April). She goes
on to detail some writers and producers
but fails to mention any directors.
I believe the only instance of a wartime
Hollywood film with a female director
– bearing in mind that the US did not
enter the war until the end of 1941 – was
The Vietnam War (The S&S Interview, May) I
realise the BBC has short-changed me. BBC4
broadcast ten hour-long episodes, cutting
the running time by more than a third.
I fail to see the rationale behind this decision.
If I and other viewers are willing to devote ten
hours to the subject, it’s unlikely we will be put
off by 16 and a half hours. Furthermore, the
six and a half hours deleted were presumably
integral to the narrative, or they would not
have been included in the full version.
The decision to abridge cannot have been
due to lack of broadcasting time, given that
most BBC4 programmes are repeats or have
previously been shown on BBC1 or BBC2. At the
very least, the BBC should have warned viewers
they were broadcasting a shortened version.
Yes, I can now watch the full version
on PBS, via Freeview; but I do not want
to sit through ten hours I saw only a few
months ago to catch the missing footage.
Dave Hayward Warwickshire
INTO GREAT SILENTS
Matthew Harle and Jack Wormell (‘The stuff of
legend’, S&S, April) could also have mentioned
that the Cinema Museum is now the pre-eminent
silent film venue in London, building on the
work of the British Silent Film Festival in
Dorothy Arzner’s First Comes Courage in
1943 – and given that Arzner (above) would
direct no more films in the remaining 36
years of her life, this hardly supports the
claim of “much greater opportunities”.
Not until Ida Lupino’s Never Fear (1949)
would a woman direct in Hollywood again and,
in the subsequent 30 years, out of more than
7,000 films produced by the major Hollywood
studios, only 14 would be directed by women.
Dave Howell Ilkley
Leicester, but catering for a wider, non-academic
audience. The internationally recognised
pianists donate their skills and provide a regular
masterclass in silent film accompaniment.
The Cinema Museum must retain its
independence. It should continue screening
collectors’ films and forgotten gems from the
BFI National Archive; and it desperately needs
proper exhibition spaces to display its treasures.
The Vic Kinson Stars Archive, along with other
similar items from the museum, was shown in a
university space north of the river about a year ago.
It is mind-blowingly bizarre and utterly unique.
Mark Newell Surbiton, Surrey
Additions and corrections
May p.23 In Simon McCallum’s article ‘How to Dramatise a Plague: A
Brief History of Aids on Screen’, Peter Friedman, co-director of Silverlake
Life: The View from Here, was mistakenly identified as the partner of
Tom Joslin; Joslin’s partner was Mark Massi, who died a year after him.
p.61 Beast: Certificate 15, 106m 37s; p.64 Custody: Certificate 15, 94m 0s;
p.70 Ghost Stories: Produced by Claire Jones, Robin Gutch; executive
producers should include Gideon Lyons; p.71 The Guernsey Literary and
Potato Peel Pie Society: Certificate 12A, 123m 56s; p.80 Tully: Certificate
15, 96m 4s; p.81 Western: Certificate 12A, 120m 40s
April p.54 Unsane: The penultimate paragraph of the review synopsis
misidentified the various corpses. After “David confronts her there,
telling her how much he loves her,” it should say: “A body found in the
woods proves to be that of the real George Shaw. Sawyer revives in the
trunk of David’s car to find Angela’s body beside her. She escapes from
the trunk and runs through the woods but he catches her. She stabs
him in the eye with her mother’s crucifix.” p.56 Antonio Lopez 1970 Sex
Fashion & Disco: Certificate 15, 95m 3s; p.56 Around India with a Movie
Camera: Certificate PG, 72m 57s
June 2018 | Sight&Sound | 95
 ENDINGSÉ
THE PASSENGER
The intricate shot that crowns
Michelangelo Antonioni’s
beguiling tale of assumed identity
only deepens the film’s mystery
By Philip Kemp
Michelangelo Antonioni is, to say the least,
not widely recognised as a humorous director.
But The Passenger (1975) – in which a man
hijacks another’s identity on impulse, knowing
next to nothing about him, then spends the
rest of the film trying to work out who he’s
supposed to be and what he’s supposed to
be doing – can be read as existential black
comedy of the most deadpan kind.
As so often with Antonioni, it’s a film that
poses far more questions than it answers. And
even by this director’s standards, it’s an austere
work. Dialogue is sparse – in the first 20 minutes
barely 100 words are spoken – and there’s no
non-diegetic music until the final credits. His
consistent preoccupations are foregrounded:
questions of estrangement and identity, a
sense of emptiness. Locke (Jack Nicholson),
the lead character, at one point says, “I used
to be someone else but I traded him in.” Does
the title refer to Locke himself, a passenger
in someone else’s life, or the nameless young
woman (Maria Schneider, credited only as The
Girl) who decides to tag along with him?
It’s a premise that could play out as farce or
melodrama (cf Robert Hamer’s The Scapegoat,
1958; or Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Despair,
1978). But with Antonioni we’re in for something
cooler and more dispassionate, with his
trademark narrative reticence and his camera
96 | Sight&Sound | June 2018
that always observes, often at a distance, but
never identifies with any of the characters.
The Passenger was Antonioni’s third English-
language film for MGM, after Blow-Up (1967)
and Zabriskie Point (1970). Zabriskie Point in
particular has dated, but this one not at all. It
includes the first screenwriting credit of film
theorist and director Peter Wollen, probably
best-known for his 1969 book Signs and Meaning
in the Cinema. Aptly enough, The Passenger
is full of signs and meanings, though just
what the signs mean isn’t always so clear.
Jack Nicholson called The Passenger “the
biggest adventure in filming that I ever had
in my life”. This was around the time he was
making The Last Detail (1973) and One Flew
over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), but here he gives
a downbeat, almost subdued portrayal – far
from what we think of as a typical grinning
‘Jack the Lad’ performance. “To Antonioni,”
he observed, “actors are moving space.”
The camera repeatedly switches venues – from
Africa to London to Spain – without warning, and
there’s a striking use of slow lateral pans and tilts,
often effecting time-shifts within the shot, without
cuts or dissolves. All this builds to the riveting
penultimate shot: a complex unbroken six-and-a-
half-minute take with a constantly moving camera.
As Locke, now passing himself off as Robertson,
the dead gun-runner whose identity he purloined,
flops on to his bed in a small remote Andalusian
The riveting penultimate shot
is a complex unbroken six-
and-a-half-minute take with a
constantly moving camera
hotel, the camera tracks almost imperceptibly
towards the barred window, slips through the
bars – seamlessly transferred at this point from
an overhead wire to a crane – and out into a dusty
wasteground. Cars pass; a boy cycles around;
men, children and dogs roam about; we see the
Girl talking to one man then to another. Two
black men (agents of the African rebels Robertson
was supplying with guns, or of the government
they were fighting against?)s approach the
hotel. The sound of a car-engine revving
camouflages what might be a silenced gunshot.
Now the camera pans left as a police car draws
up, then circles slowly rightwards and back
towards the hotel. Another police car arrives, police
pile out along with Locke’s wife (Jenny Runacre),
who’s been hunting for him. They rush to the
hotel, along with the Girl. As the camera continues
to watch, tracking laterally past the windows, entry
is gained to Locke’s room; he lies dead on the bed,
murdered or even perhaps a suicide. End of shot.
But before this, another mystery. Arriving
at the hotel, Locke’s told by the proprietor that
‘Mrs Robertson’ has already arrived, and that
he doesn’t need to show his passport – one is
enough for both. He meets this supposed wife;
it’s Schneider. So this young woman, whom
he met a day or so previously, seemingly by
chance, is travelling with the surname of his
alter ego, implying – what, exactly? Once
again, we’re left to supply the answer.
One last, perhaps frivolous question.
Following the sinuous virtuoso take we get a
final shot of the corner of the hotel at sunset. It
features a dog. And we’re in Andalusia. Could
this – just possibly – be a sly nod to Buñuel?
The Passenger is out now on Blu-ray
i from Indicator/Powerhouse
‘THE BRITISH EQUIVALENT
OF THE FRENCH NEW WAVE,
AND – IN ITS OWN WAY –
JUST AS INFLUENTIAL’
Sam Mendes
A NEW 9-DISC BLU-RAY SET*
CELEBRATING THE 60TH
ANNIVERSARY OF WOODFALL
FILMS, FEATURING NEW
RESTORATIONS OF:

Look Back in Anger

The Entertainer
Saturday Night and

Image: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Sunday Morning
A Taste Of Honey
The Loneliness of the Long
Distance Runner
Tom Jones
Girl with Green Eyes
The Knack...and How to Get it

AVAILABLE 28 MAY
ORDER NOW
*Also available as 8-disc DVD set
★★★★
T h e Gu a rd i a n

15 STRONG LANGUAGE,
BRIEF STRONG VIOLENCE